Attorney Louise Mitchell rejects dredging proposal by developers on Canouan
I strongly reject the proposal by the Developers on Canouan to dredge some 3281 feet of water, 98 feet wide and some 22 feet deep in the Canouan Eastern Coast Marine Reserve/Conservation Area ( Regulation 21 Fisheries Act), referred to in their proposal as the Godhal Lagoon.
The proposed dredging would be an illegal act as dredging is prohibited by Chapter 139 (Canouan Resorts Development Lease Ratification Act 1990 (section 7) and Chapter 59 (Fisheries Act, section 22(2)) of the Laws of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
This dredging will severely disrupt the natural ecosystem of the Lagoon, causing unimaginable levels of damage. The Developers are relying on the fact that the health of the Lagoon is already compromised, not saying who caused it to be compromised in the first place. In other words, let us inflict pain upon pain. Let us not seek to restore the health of the reefs, let us not follow international movements to install coral nurseries and restore our reefs. Let us treat them as dead one time.
The Report not only claims that the reefs are dead but they claim that the “the clean water in which the residents swim – are gone, they are “history.” This is news to me, that is, that the clean water is also gone. Maybe what is gone is the residents swimming in the water.
The report highlights “history” in bold, almost to put salt into the wounds of the people of the Grenadines. Did it make me cry to see that in writing yes. Pain inflicted. But no, we are not giving up. We not going to lay down and play dead. Oh no we are not. I’m not going to celebrate the loss of habitat and highlight it in bold, and cite it as a reason for further destruction. Any harm highlighted should be a call to action to restore the habitat – to plant new coral.
The stated reason for the dredging is to allow massive dredgers to pass through the Conservation Area, to access the shore near the Golf Course to offload imported sand from Guyana (to avoid trucks having to drive through the village).
The proposal also relies on the assumption that there are no endangered species in the area. In other words, the endangered turtles that swim all throughout the Grenadines would never be found in this Lagoon.
The proposal breaches Section 7 of the Canouan Act on another ground. It uses local sand for the development of the Resort.
The proposal states that the dredged sand would be used for the replenishment of the beaches in the lagoon (the beaches used by the Resort).
Photographs included in the report show dead coral on the sea floor of the Lagoon. But the Report states that “additional benefits of the project would include the removal of sargassum seaweed from the seabed.” I thought seaweed used to float.
I shall be lodging a full objection to the further destruction of the island of Canouan with the Planning Authority. Why is it that the Golf Course needs 100,000 tonnes of sand all one time, now, is it due to poor maintenance over the years?
