Politicians and the Environment

By James Milnes Gaskell

It appears that right now another dredging is going on where the last one took place. If the sandbar is being dredged then it is unlawful and the Government should call a halt to it. If, on the other hand the dredging is merely close to the shore but not on the sandbar, then it is environmentally undesirable but not illegal. The political opposition in the form of Mark Brantley calls on me to stop the dredging, or at least question why I have not done so!  Why me?  I am not the opposition. Why would I want to spend money on another legal case? We know what the law is. He is the lawyer and the opposition. Does he have the guts to speak out in favour of upholding the law and stopping any illegal dredging, if there is any? No one is against dredging per se, but it should be done from a good distance from the shore as all the academic experts will tell you.  Since year 2000 there has been an amendment to S.26 of the National Conservation and Environment Act 1987 whereby a new exemption clause was added. This clause purports to allow anyone to “remove or assist in the removal of any natural barrier against the sea”, under the Authority of a permit granted by the Minster in writing in such form as the Minister approves. I very much doubt that these words give the Minister power to permit a dredging from a natural barrier against the sea. If the Minister exercises his discretion upon application by the dredgers to dredge from that natural barrier against the sea, the sandbar, he is legally obliged to exercise his discretion reasonably. The first obligation of a Government is to keep its people and their land safe; the people from enemies, disease and starvation, the land from attack by natural or human elements. The three Judges found that in 2000 it was unlawful to dredge from the sandbar because it formed a natural barrier against the sea. It is difficult to see how that which was declared unlawful in 2000 could reasonably be declared lawful by means of a Ministerial permit.

Another environmental matter is the Marina at Tamarind Bay. Permission to construct and develop this Marina appears to have gone through ‘on the nod’, without serious effort to assess the effect it may have on the Western shoreline, water quality etc. Plans show it to be a massive structure jutting out into the sea 600 feet beyond the Cliff Dwellers Point.

The Developers were obliged to have an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) made, and a general report of this nature was done. The way these things are supposed to work is that the Government looks at the developer’s EIA, and then if there are points which they consider may give concern, they ask their own specialist to comment. They oblige the developer to pay for this.  It is not normally prudent simply to take a developer’s EIA at face value. Since we hear that there is to be a ground breaking at Tamerind Bay on September 11th, it is apparent that the Authorities have raised no queries. They should have.

At page 62/3 of the EIA under the heading “Conclusions” is written “…In the operation phase (i.e. when the Marina is completed) the rock revetments will alter the water circulation and current patterns within Jones Bay. Thus the project will affect the sediment transportation and distribution patterns, and the beach dynamics.” What this really means is that the writer acknowledges that the beaches will be affected. He cannot say how, because he cannot know. He does not even say that computer models show that a 600 feet projection at the Cliff Dwellers Point will have certain results. Some academics say that computer modelling is useless as a real guide to the remodelling that nature will do. I know from my own experience of the beach at Colquhouns, perhaps ¾ mile from the Cliff Dwellers Point, that we lose beach when the current is from the South and gain when it is from the North. It could be that the 600-foot projection will alter the current patterns along the Western coast in their entirety. What is sure is that there will be an effect and we do not have a clue what it will be.

At page 44 of the EIA we read “Smith Warner (Coastal Engineers) gives maximum hurricane wave heights at shore line at 2.5 metres (8 feet)”. That is irrelevant as far as wave heights are concerned at the furthest point of the Marina, i.e. 600 feet beyond Cliff Dwellers Point. That far out, I would guess they could be 20 or 30 feet. No way I would invest my money in a Marina subject to such elemental forces, or place my yacht here, if I had one. So it seems that the Government has given consent without serious environmental consideration. A negative. But what about the noisy Opposition Party, why silence?

You have to give the NRP Government environmental credit for the wind farm and for their efforts to have electricity produced geothermally. As the demand for oil begins to exceed the supply, as will happen at some stage after the worldwide recession is over, the price will go up and up and small Caribbean islands with fragile, weak economies will not be able to purchase enough fuel to keep up a constant electricity supply if that supply is generated by diesel powered engines. So, what the Government is doing is not only environmentally correct but economically critical. Some eighteen months ago, there was a very public signing of an agreement with West Indies Power Ltd., but we have as yet no evidence that that Company is actually building the geothermal plant. The Opposition, frantic to minimise the credit and political advantage that will accrue to the Government when this plant commences, has been very critical and has tried to claim that when in Government they started the push for geothermal and that the present Administration is mishandling it. All this convinces me that the Administration has and has had a need for a superior media chief. Up front reasonable explanations for the way events are turning out, are usually accepted by the people. In this case we are left to wonder why nothing has happened in the last eighteen months. This sort of blank is fertile ground for the Opposition’s claims that the Administration should not have teamed up with West Indies Power.

You may remember that about a year ago it emerged that Mark Brantley had during the CCM Administration’s time in office acted as a legal consultant to go over the OAS draft geothermal agreement. The agreement which left his desk gave total control, and therefore money arising from, the geothermal energy to be produced in Nevis to a council, having 10 members from St. Kitts and one from Nevis. When this agreement became public the NRP spokesmen simply said a few times that Brantley and the CCM were going to give Nevis’ geothermal to St. Kitts.  Brantley denied it and said that it was a ‘generic’ agreement for St. Kitts Nevis, Dominica and St. Lucia.  This seemed to flummox the NRP spokesman as little further was heard of it. A vigorous media chief would have said and repeated and repeated, that when this agreement left Brantley’s desk it was not generic, it was specific to St. Kitts Nevis. He would have gone on to repeat that this was the only time Brantley (not then in the CCM) had an opportunity to serve Nevis, and he failed.  He failed Nevis, and he failed Nevisians. The media chief would have buried Brantley. His message would have had the unique merit of being absolutely true, and would have meant that whenever a person heard the name Brantley, the association in his mind would have been “the man who wanted to give away Nevis’ geothermal to St. Kitts”.

Although there is no media chief, I have noticed that Carlisle Powell, on the CHOICE  ‘Tell me’ programme every Thursday at 8:00 p.m., has sharpened up considerably and promises to have a programme on geothermal and another on wind energy. If these episodes are as interesting as last week’s revelation about the building of the Airport, then they make up to some extent for the lack of a media chief. I hope the Airport ‘Tell me’ is repeated later. We all need to absorb the facts.