Mr. Hugh Buckner’s response to the criticism of the BEST Commission concerning the environmental effects of the Sandyport development to the surrounding areas is to suggest possibly that there is the compensation that Sandyport is “teeming with wildlife”.
I would be reluctant to take Mr Buckner to task on this if it were merely developer’s hyperbole, but the point is significant because the “wildlife” never spectacular seems to be diminishing in certain significant areas that are worrying.
I have been a resident in Sandyport for more than five years. Being interested in wildlife and birds in particular I can say that the birds present both as to species and numbers are no more than can be expected on reclaimed fill land in a development that retaining so little original habitat and is not landscaped so as to attract birds. I can expect to see only some 10 different common species throughout the year, which is poor compared to the average person with a garden living in Eastern New Providence.
I used to “bird” the remaining mangrove areas in Sandyport until they were substantially destroyed about two years ago and would regularly see Great Heron and Snowy Egrets and other birds attracted to the wetland habitat. They are gone. I sometimes now see a Heron flying high but not intending to come to land in Sandyport.
The only Heron I still see is my own tame Green Heron, which feeds not on fish but lizards and such like. Most worrying is that I would regularly see two Belted Kingfishers working the waterways. I have not seen them recently.
That brings me to the wildlife in the Waterway. When I first moved to Sandyport there were indeed present a number of species of fish: tarpon, jacks and occasionally other sizeable fish. In my waterway I would see additionally numerous smaller fish and young barracuda and pencilfish as well as small tropical fish nibbling the rocks where crabs scrambled and hid.
Today all those smaller fish seem to have gone and the big fish seem fewer. I can never see fish from my docks and few crabs remain.
At the same time the water does not appear to be the fresh seawater it was. It appears to be stagnant and to have an odour but the mangrove swamp water being drained into the canals may produce that. Off my beachlet garbage remains stationary sometimes for a day or two bobbing up and down with the tide but not moving until eventually it deposits itself on my beachlet, which has to be cleaned every day.
That suggests that the entrance to the waterway might never have been designed deep enough nor wide enough to provide a sufficient water change to keep the canals flushed clean and the water replaced in the area of the extended waterways that have been developed in the last few years. Perhaps silting is an ancillary factor.
This is not a concern that I have alone amongst owners. I may be wrong but the BEST Commission seems more interested in what happens to the rest of New Providence.
Is there no authority that can require an expert’s report that clarifies either that there is no problem to the present working of the waterway systems, or if there is a problem state how that problem is to be overcome? The expert’s report could also confirm whether the present system could accommodate any new waterways intended in the new 5th Phase.
That would not prevent the development of the remaining land but would ensure that the waterway system as well as the rest of the infrastructure was not developed beyond their capabilities to the detriment of present and future owners.
Lionel Levine
Nassau,
February 20, 2004
