Member of Parliament for High Rock Kenneth Russell is addressing concerns made by one resident who claimed that the dredging being conducted by Statoil has caused the build up of fill on the beach front.
Last week, High Rock native, Cecil Kemp reported to The Freeport News that the beach environment in the High Rock area has drastically changed because of current and past dredging.
“I have watched this problem for quite some time and the beaches have been destroyed by fill from the digging. In fact, there is a problem finding any sandy beaches from Statoil all the way to High Rock,” Kemp told this journal.
With Statoil’s expansion, Kemp said that it would require more dredging and if the fill is not hauled away by barge, the problem could be catastrophic for the environment.
“The beaches would be worse than they are now should we be hit by a hurricane. The investors are making millions of dollars on our soil, so we expect for them to keep our beach clean, because many residents are fishermen and this keeps the fish and the lobsters away and the local fishermen are affected.”
When questioned on the matter, Russell noted that when Burmah Oil, now Statoil, was built the dredging that was done to allow for ships to come into the Harbour and resulted in fill being built up on the beaches between high Rock and South Riding Point.
“This ended up being a pebble rock beach rather than a sand beach… in terms of Statoil dredging, now the only thing they did this time was clear up the area to replace a line going to a platform,” he said.
“Yes, in the future there might be some expansion and if there is expansion of the seabed and dredging then yes, we will see to it that the fill is brought to shore and disposed of as opposed to being allowed to drift.”
Russell stated that no matter what measures are put in place one would be unable to catch all of the fill.
“You can catch the vast majority of it, but, and I don’t believe that with the new requirements for dredging, that the ministry of the environment would allow them to dredge without fill screens to prevent the fill from spreading to prevent what happened to the beach many years ago to continue to happen.”
Russell said he intends to speak with officials of South Riding Point this week to find out exactly what is happening in regards to dredging.
“I have not seen the damage that is being complained about, so I will find out what their procedure is… If they don’t have fill screens in place, I will speak with the Ministry of the Environment… there might be a problem, but I have not seen it yet.”
Attempts to contact officials from Statoil yesterday to find out what their procedures are as they relate to dredging were unsuccessful.
Source: The Nassau Guardian
