AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Environment Development of a new barge dock?

Where is Harrison Ford when you need him? He sure did bitch enough about the dam.

Well would that not be a conflict of interest????

Letter from George Parham:


Major Jones, BELIZE PORT AUTHORITY

Mr. Martin Alegria, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Mr. Craig Moore, GEOLOGY DEPARTMENT

Mr. Wilbur Sabido, FORESTRY DEPARTMENT

Honourable Elsa Paz, MAYORESS, SAN PEDRO TOWN

Honourable Manuel Heredia, Jr., AREA REPRESENTATIVE



Distinguished Public Officials:



The word came as a shock. There's going to be a new, privately-owned Port in San Pedro Town. It's going to be built in a residential area on the south side of the Island. The road that the trucks with their containers will have to travel past homes within 30 or 40 feet of the road. Stretches of the road are virtually impassable during the rainy season, now. The same roads are "dust bowls" from normal traffic during the dry season. When the new cobblestone road is completed from the water plant northward, we will see unprecedented use by the ever-present incredibly large dump trucks and now we're going to add 20 foot and 40 foot containers with their tractors to the mix? Surely, the powers that have reportedly approved this project have little or no expertise in this type of engineering or little or no regard for the residents, the environment and the future of Ambergris Caye…or we would not be faced with a situation with "disaster" written all over it.



Let's look at the situation as it is, right now. Work has proceeded and critical mangrove has already been cut from the road to the sea. Was a permit obtained? We don't know but we trust one of you can tell us. A rock roadway has been started to allow a large mechanical shovel to operate. WILL THE REEF, HOL CHAN AND SHARK RAY ALLEY BE AFFECTED BY THE EBB AND FLOW OF THE CURRENTS AND THE POTENTIAL SILTING THAT IS BOUND TO OCCUR IN THE COMING YEARS? THIS PROPERTY FACES THESE VALUABLE AND PROTECTED SITES. ARE THEY REALLY GOING TO BE PROTECTED FROM POTENTIAL ACCIDENTAL OIL OR CHEMICAL SPILLS FROM BARGES CARRYING A VAST ARRAY OF ITEMS FOR CONSTRUCTION AND MANY INDUSTRIES?



Aside from the multiple environmental issues, we have a thriving tourism industry that supports thousands of people on this island. Do we think that a working port with the potential for many barges to be in the process of unloading or loading on our beachfront is the sight we want to greet our guests? Most destinations work very hard at locating their ports and industrial buildings "out of sight". Will literally thousands of residents and guests be awakened to the sounds of large trucks passing their homes or rooms at 5:00 a.m. or 11:00 p.m.? Or, will the barge industry suddenly enact rigid schedules for their loading, unloading and trucking for this new site? They haven't seen fit to do this at the current piers being utilized.



The Government of Belize (and by extension, the citizens of this country) built a new marina/port on the back side of the island at substantial expense. There have been up to 4 barges there at one time but we hear cries that with that many you can't turn one around. Has anyone ever heard of scheduling? This location also is accessed by a road to the back that bypasses many, but not all, residential areas but it won't have to travel a substantial amount of the new cobblestone road. While the people have had to bear the cost of this marina/port, we will now have to bear the many additional costs associated with the need for better roads and maintenance if the new port proceeds. For a country with too little income and a multitude of needs, this looks like the wrong project at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons.



We look forward to the opportunity to speak with you about this ill-conceived project and participate in a search for a solution that not only contributes to the protection of all our natural beauty and resources, but also is both citizen and visitor friendly. There is little or no doubt that win-win solutions are usually the best solutions for all.



Respectfully,
South Ambergris Caye Neighborhood Watch
Ambergris Caye Chamber of Commerce.

For those wanting to send letters to the Mayoress,
E-Mail: sptb@btl.net Fax: 501-226-2492
her direct line: 501-226-3711

I do feel for property owners within a few hundred feet of the new barge docking area. There will certainly be noise and road activity and it won't be for just a few minutes a day...the needs of the island dictate that it'll run for several hours a day whenever a fully loaded barge unloads.

That said.....

The argument that Hol Chan Marine Park is suddenly about to be threatened and destroyed by the dredging of a new channel to accommodate the barges is perhaps stretching things somewhat. In the past much larger dredging activities in the same area have not destroyed Hol Chan or any other part of the reef. I've got aerial photos of just about all of the East coast of Ambergris Caye and they clearly show where much larger dredging activity along a 12 mile stretch of Ambergris Caye has occurred than where the present barge docking areas are and yet the reef is still healthy in those areas (climate change notwithstanding).

I think there are better arguments against moving the barge landing area so far south and most of those arguments "against" are detrimental to the barge operators: Longer road distance for deliveries, poor roads which will get worse in the wet season, prevailing winds which will blow sideways on to the barges and cause strain on anchor lines, long distance between the barge landing and barge company warehousing. I am certain that the price of freight will have to rise a bit in order to compensate for the difficulties the barge operators will encounter in their new homes.

I do jog down to the new barge marina West of the DFC on a regular basis and I can tell you that the docking area is deep enough and large enough for 3 large barges. The problem is that the channels that were dredged by the government for access to the marina are simply not wide enough for safe navigation for the barges in use today. The windage on a fully loaded barge being pushed by a hard working tug boat would almost certainly result in grounding....steering would be well nigh impossible.

Those navigation channels to the marina need to be widened considerably and unless the government is willing to do that I can't see any alternatives to the ones being favoured by the town council.

Chris,
You must be kidding, you and the rest of Belize are willing to gamble with the expectation that there will be no damage to the reef. There is only one reef of this size in this hemisphere. Where are you coming from that you can bet that this will not be any problem to reef future? This is the only one left on this side of the world. Are you willing to bet the damage won't happen?

Sorry to hear what is happening in San Pedro and the "paradise lost" effect the new barge dock will have.

They will most certainly have a lot to dredge to turn them around in the new location. You can walk out 150' and its still only waist deep. So why not spend the money to widen the channel in the back?
The other problem not addressed is, they will have to cross private property to get to theirs. Who gives them the right to make the cart path provided and paid for by property owners, a highway, to handle their trucks? This path can't handle loaded delivery trucks now, let lone trucks hauling fully loaded 20' & 40' containers.
By the way, it is not 100' away from property owners, its on the property lines. This is an established residential neighborhood, and they will destroy it. When the theives, robbers and druggies, hitch rides on these barges, where will the police patrol be? Is the Town prepared to have patrol in this area? I think not, it hasn't happened so far.

Now, the marina in the back is clearly not a solution - the end of the channel is too shallow and dredged to the bedrock, amongst many other objections like the winds, size, channel, docking area etc.

I got pics from both (existing/old) barge sites on busy days, and it is clearly naive to assume they'll be able to unload in the proposed marina.

IMO the best solution is to keep'em where they used to be for a while, and find a real solution without politicians (either side).

Ibzeman, no, I'm not kidding. There has been plenty of dredging over the past few years and the reef is still there. If dredging causes silt which causes reef damage then Hurricane Keith would have put paid to the reef in 2000 when THOUSANDS if not Millions of tons of silt and sand was deposited there......the wind blew sand and silt in that direction for 60 hours....the reef survived just fine. I would suggest that the storm probably dumped more sand every minute on the reef than man made dredging could produce in a century...and it's certainly not going to take the barge folk a century to dredge their channels. Mother Nature looks after its own. She took care of the reef just fine post-Keith.

I'm not suggesting there won't be some silt caused by the initial dredging but the argument that the reef will suddenly die just because one more channel (one of literally DOZENS on the East side of Ambergris) is dredged simply doesn't hold water. There has already been plenty of dredging on that part of the island...all well and good when it suited private property owners who want to put a 300ft dock with one side dredged out to bedrock so that they can bring in their 25ft skiff...where was the outrage then? The answer, none was required, this kind of activity is well tolerated by nature.

That said, there needs to be another solution to this problem. I doubt the barge operators will be able to function adequately in the rainy season that far south of town when the roads disintegrate. It's going to be tough for them to supply the demands of the island when the rains are bucketing down.