Corozal Residents Raise Environmental Concerns over Caribbean Sea Project

Residents of the Bay Shore Drive area in Corozal Town have voiced concerns over the extent of the environmental impact that a project can have in their community. The project is the construction of a jetty that extends several hundred feet into the Corozal Bay. Whether or not the property owner has gotten the requisite environmental permits to carry out the construction, the residents say they have already begun to see changes in the sea immediately next to where the construction is taking place. They shared with News Five their concerns about the project and its impact on the ecology in their community.

 

Voice of: June Hartley, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town

“We just had a small breakwater a very small beach here, and with the advent of this wall, you can see that the whole tide has changed. Number one, the water is deeper on the other side of the wall than it is in this harbor, and the sand is building up. Sand is building up inside that area and sand is coming over when the tide is high, it’s coming over and filling out this rocky area here.”

 

Marion Ali

“Which is right in front of your property?”

 

Voice of: June Hartley

“That’s correct, yes. I know this wasn’t the finished product. This is intended to be a wall as tall as the one on the other side and I can’t really imagine what that will do then to the water; what we will get environmentally when that whole area is blocked off.”

Voice of: Edward Hartley, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town
“I live right next door, so it directly impacts me in every way you can think of and of course, we’ve had a lot of problems with noise, with the construction, with large trucks, unloading boulders, with backhoes, with an excavator, you name it, we have had it. I used to have a view of the lights of Corozal. Now I have a view of a brick wall going out into the ocean and it probably impacts the value of my property.”

 

 

 

Voice of: William Hedlund, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town
“Why do you need that big of a breakwater? I could understand if somebody wants to put a breakwater out 50 feet. A lot of these shoreline properties have breakwaters put out to stop erosions, but they all had environmental impact statements done. And this one, by chance or happenstance, doesn’t have anything done to it. It’s about 400 feet out into the bay. And so when you do that – why are you going to do that? Are you going to turn it into a water ski arena? Are you going to turn it into a jet ski arena? What are you going to do? There’s no reason for doing the development like they’ve done it.”

 

 

 

Voice of: Ty Stephens, Bay Shore Drive Resident, Corozal Town
“Just with the ecology of the sea out there, everything from algae to big fish, everything from algae all the way to the big fish that come through here is going to be affected by it. So detrimentally, I don’t know, but I wouldn’t think it would be positive. I love Belize. Obviously, I think Belize is beautiful along with his people. I love everything about it. And I’m just  really cautious when it comes to any sort of big man-made situations that we’ve got over here.”