Sea defence for Sandy Bay
Following the opening of multimillion-dollar sea defence projects in Georgetown and Sans Souci, The St. Vincent government will begin equally important coastal defence work at Sandy Bay in 2023.
During the budget presentation, Finance Minister Camilo Gonsalves said Sandy Bay is threatened to its west by a fitfully slumbering volcano and to its east by rough and rising seas that are removing many feet of coastline annually.
Gonsalves said recent hurricanes and storms have disproportionately passed over the northern third of St. Vincent, and the coastal protection of Sandy Bay is a most urgent imperative. Without it, the village of Sandy Bay could cease to exist.
In late 2018, the Caribbean Development Bank approved US$13.5 million to finance coastal protection projects in Sandy Bay. Gonsalves said that will not be enough to guarantee adequate coastal protection for the entire village of Sandy Bay, but it’s a start.
The Sandy Bay Sea Defence Resilience Project will be done in this manner:
- To protect the coast, build three 730-m-long sections of stone revetment.
- backfill the area in front of the newly constructed revetment to act as a buffer zone between the existing infrastructure and the sea;
- construct a 350-meter-long reinforced concrete retaining wall, measuring 2.5–4 m in height;
- Construct a 250-meter-long masonry retaining wall measuring 3.0–5.0 m in height; and finally, the construction will include approximately 100 m of paved walkways and 900 m of landscaping.
Gonsalves said two of the three lots on the Sandy Bay project have already been advertised in the newspaper, and budget 2023 provides just over $8 million to start the project this year.
