Causeways Were Approved After Consultation

Martin Alegria

According to Alegria, a public consultation was held and taken into consideration for the causeway. He speaks to the concerns and what was agreed to.

Martin Alegria, Chief Environmental Officer

“We refer to one as Stake Bank Project and the North Drowned Caye Project. Back in 2006, both projects were treated separately and so each one did an EIA. I think North Drowned Caye was called Ocean View Grand, the company and Stake Bank was called Stake Bank Enterprise. The Stake Bank EIA was done by Mister Garcia and the North Drowned Caye was done by the late Tom Brimshaw, I think. So there were public consultations for both of those. There were discussions for and against. And one of the issues that were always out there with those projects was the causeway or the causeways because each project had a causeway, each EIA had a causeway proposed. And so those discussions were held in 2006/2007 where the NEAC at the end of the day, when they reviewed all of the meaningful inputs from the general public from an environmental perspective, they were of the view that a causeway can be approved and permitted and hence in 2007, the ECP for North Drowned Caye include the causeway. The ECP for Stake Bank did not, but it’s not because NEAC did not approve it, it was because there were complications that the investor and the N.G.O. community had with the Swallows Caye so they needed to address that before anything could be officialised or approved. So that discussion between the investor and the Swallows Caye Management or Board of Directors, that took long and there were difference, I guess, that by the time the chief was ready to sign the ECP, it was too late to include it beucase things were not resolved or the precondition upon which NEAC had granted it the go-ahead – and that was to take Swallows Caye into consideration and work with them so that you have some kind of amicable solution. But the causeway itself was an issue that was discussed, debated, of course it was contention, but in the end the NEAC approved the clearance of those causeways.”