why would the government actively destroy a beach?

I am going to write this one as a letter in the hopes that either the Sun or Observer papers will carry it. If they would like to carry it and any of the photos (in high res) then they can call me on 725 7263:

Dear editor, i wrote a long entry this week in my http://www.antiguaisland.blogspot.com/ blog about how badly i think the UPP government is doing when it comes to maintaining our beaches which by the way are in terrible shape and getting worse. The five main government institutions that should have something to do with protecting our beaches are the ministry of environment, ministry of tourism, fisheries, public works, Development and Control Authority....... the problem is that each is filled with horrible red tape and just cant cooperate with each other working towards common goals which are best for the county. The health and therefore maintenance of our beaches is essential for our survival as a nation. Why the ALP and now the UPP cant see this is beyond understanding. Beaches all over the Caribbean have been made and or maintained using barbuda sand. Can you imagine that some islands which didn't have a nice beach now have a lovely one thanks to sand from our country yet we here have lost beach after beach with little or no consideration. To me, it is hard to understand how beaches are allowed to be destroyed. Some would have said that the ALP would have let anything in our country get destroyed without much care, but i am saddened to see that it is not a political thing. There is something wrong with all of our leaders past and present that they are ignoring beach maintenance and or destruction and in some cases as i will now describe that they are allowed to actively destroy a beach.

Each time there are big waves hitting our shores there are beaches that have problems.

The barrier reefs are now lower as i describes in my last blog entry and more wave action and higher sea levels are washing sand up from the beach onto land behind the beach or even into ponds behind beaches.

Since beaches are of critical importance to our nation one would assume that huge amounts of sand being removed from a shoreline would be a big deal. Instead, after all the storms the sand which is now no longer on beaches is removed by people. One of the main reasons OJ's beach bar is now OJ's rock bar is that the property owners up and down that beach have been removing sand after storms since Hugo. OJ can tell you how many truck loads of sand got taken away from the properties near him. A staggering amount of sand. If you read my previous blog entry then you would know why this sand isn't just replenishing itself. We haven't had any major beach event like this during the UPP administration until Hurricane Dean past way to our south. Although we had little weather from Dean we did get massive waves pounding our south facing beaches for about 24 hours. Massive amounts of sand were pushed from the beach onto areas behind the beach in quite a few places. This happened to other beaches in the past but this time it was the south coast that was hit. Windward Beach was worst, with Rendezvous Bay being another, Johnsons Point beach (near OJs) another and Darkwood another where sand was pushed under the new bridge. The very next week sand started going missing in bucket loads from Windward Beach. I haven't been there since then so i am sure that it is worse. The property which is for sale on the road between OJ's and Blue Heron hotel had the sand that washed up onto it removed too. The worst however was and is Darkwood once again. Darkwood beach has had hundreds of truck loads of sand taken from it since Hurricane Hugo and all with the permission and in most cases with the management of the Public Works department. After once such storm the mining of sand was so severe from the swamp behind that to this day the swamp hasn't caught itself. The beach now has more rocks than ever and when you compare old photos or video the new Darkwood looks like a different beach. One would have thought that the UPP would have been wiser. After i noticed huge piles of sand washed under the bridge at Darkwood I immediately called the Ministry of Environment to uge them to push the sand back onto the beach. I was told that they have no jurisdiction over sand and couldn't do anything. They said that the only people who could touch the sand was Public Works. Public Works! Great! Sure enough, it was public works that once again started trucking this same sand away from Darkwood the next day. Click on the image for a larger version:

In fact they have been doing it for weeks since Dean. Look at this photo. You can Click on it to see the large version. Sand in any high tide or big swell will wash under the bridge (which by the way they try as hard as they can to keep unblocked by sand so that the sand can wash through easily) and once its off the beach then it can easily be trucked away. Why easily? Well easily because our nation and its leaders thinks that once sand is not on a beach then it can be moved away to be mixed with cement. Hard to fathom the mentality but i would like to take this opportunity to ask the Minister of Tourism Harold Lovell and the leader of the nation Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer a question. Why are you sitting by and allowing the destruction and mismanagement of the most important thing that we have in Antigua? I would think that as intelligent people, you can see that laws and policy need to be changed so that our beaches are better protected and managed. I can only think therefore that this whole issue has slipped you by. Please do something about it. My dad, John Fuller, told me that the Environment Division was incorrect by saying that they were helpless. According to him, the chief Environment Officer, in this case Diane Black Lane, has the authority to declare a situation where sand is washed off a beach during a storm, an "environmental disaster" and then have the authority to return the sand to the beach. No person or institution should be allowed to take sand of any amount from a beach in our country. If the UPP think that taking sand from Barbuda's mine is bad then they have to agree that taking sand from our beaches is worse and must be stopped.

Eli Fuller

More from Sandy Island...

Led by Vanessa Hall, she and her cousins went out to Sandy island and deliver this neat video witness of their time.

Clearly from earlier report here and what the video shows that we need to have a concerted and focused effort on this area. Folks interested in taking part in some way of manpower or appropriate vessels to make an effective job of it,please drop me a line via the comments section.

Big thanks to Vanessa for this great vid.

What can I say....

Other than a

HUGE, THANK YOU ALL

From all accounts and what I saw, significant numbers did their thing getting out and contributing to this effort. Amazing to think that folks like our selves all over this spinning blue ball did what we did. Mutual inspiration. Cool stuff.

it was fun this weekend.

Many stories have been coming in about how much fun the cleanup was. Families and friends came together as a peaceful little army fighting in a non violent but effective way against the scurge of coastal pollution. Today's trip up to Green Island with a stop at Rendezvous Bay on the way back was soooo much fun. Twenty one of us collected about 40 big bags of garbage including about 8 full bags of recyclable material. Will write about it tomorrow on my little blog but the story and pics of saturday's small cleanup effort which was also very enjoyable can be found here. Until i write more about today's trip you can just enjoy the photo above taken when we got back to jolly harbour. All in all i think there is no doubt that anyone who was involved will be there again within a few months as it was all so enjoyable. There have been many calls to do it again soon.....and once again we will answer with action and not excuses!

eli

The Sunday report...

Is it so obvious that I do not have a camera , as I have nicked a few around the internet. Soooo, frustrating ! Anyway, work with what we have!

Thankfully my good friend Steve Moore joined us on the beach yesterday with both video and stills cameras, so we are going to put some short movies together to raise the awareness of this issue.

Getting home yesterday, I took a nap with the intent of going out later, wrong...woke up at about one thirty in the morning with two hungry dogs looking at me ! OK, now I've got all the sleep I need, updated blog and decided to be at the beach as the light broke. That is why I was reminded of the need for a camera.

Loading my pockets with plastic shopping bags, the ones I hate at the store and vowing to get some canvas or similar made, I made my way down to the beach of Halfmoon Bay and collected about six bags FULL, bags doubled hence stuffed pockets. Now I know that does not sound like a lot but consider that they were all small pieces, from thumb size to fist size to pea size and of course the odd intact beverage or oil bottle, some with caps some without.

Venturing down to Farley Bay, so a nice hike from the back of Old Road. Wow was there a ton of stuff down there, so prioritizing I set about taking a walk down the beach and picking up plastic bottles various and other manageable bits and left with a ruck sack full. Love the big shiney stones and pebbles here, not much sand, bit seasonal, though with mining holes are a dead give away that some has been illegally removed.

These scalloped water holes are a result of illegal sand mining

So tomorrow, Monday, I am going to go round the designated beaches, to ensure all has been collected for proper disposal, just in case some participants unknowingly missed the collections.

One neat thing, is the nice feeling of satisfaction that there is a useful thing to do with the dreaded plastic shopping bags. Perfect in size, slip in the pocket practically unnoticed about six make up one "sack size". Walk up the beach, fill them,leave when full and once you have filled your last one and start making a return to your starting point and pick them up along the way and hey presto, in the car they go !

The Saturday report....

As the sun warmed the day many volunteers congregated on beaches around the island with the purpose of collecting the litter that collects on our coastline, much of it washed ashore. Like our trash that washes ashore on another beach miles from our eyes.

A cadre from NSWMA and the Environment division set about clearing up Jabberwock beach, resulting in about a dozen large bags of trash, mainly plastic bottle caps, bottles and bits of polypropylene rope, from nets and other fishing gear. On the land side it is clear that people who pick nick do not give a damn about their trash, from bottle to used diapers and condom's.

While the NSWMA team went of to Darkwood and Fryes I headed down to Pigeon Point (the world 8th sexiest beach). A small group from Island Academy were busy clearing up. Also learning that there a FEW people who of their own initiative regularly have a little pick up EVERY time the go to the beach, being a few times a week to everyday, to those people I salute you. And trust that the selfish folks get a change of heart and do the right thing.

Scooting north to Fort James I was to find the NSWMA team picking litter from the beach, great stuff as there was plenty of it. Also being a leeward beach all that does not get collected will only sully the shore of other countries. Let alone the fatal consequences to marine life in the interim.

The horror story comes from Sandy island, a small infrequently visited island at the entrance to St.John's harbour. From the initial report we are going to have to make a concerted effort on this one location, together with the lee shore of the harbour. It is sadly not a surprise, as a nation we litter greatly and with the change of materials recently from glass to plastic for most sodas, like Coke, Fanta and Sprite. Previous bottles were glass and were collected as the had a deposit value to be redeemed, for some this was a source of income. So in our development we have seen trash spreading and income opportunities disappear, but I guess profit is up for someone along that chain, while another wonders how to earn a living.

Apart from the beach, the seabed around the island is like a rubbish tip and again will need a tooled up and prepared gang for this clear up. Likely to be a lead and focal point in December when we will focus beyond the beach and under the waves. Working with many of the dive operations, who will be leading up to the tourism season.

International Coastal Clean Up - Antigua style

So we have completed the first day, well the formal one and today, Sunday we have folks who are taking part in their own stride. Will be curious to hear and see their reports.

So we met up at around seven on Jabberwock Beach, with the team from NSWMA, who brought loads of bags, gloves and tools.

Grabbing a bag I headed down to the beach to see what awaits. The truth be known, there was little in terms of big stuff, most of it by now on this windward beach was small fragments of plastic. The type of stuff if I were a fish, I would have thought was dinner.

Over the next few day we'll have some more in depth stories and pictures posted to keep you up to speed with what we have been up to.

Blight on the beach

But one question posed. "How the hell does an 18 wheeler tire find its self on a beach miles from a road ?" We have some ideas, but welcome a good hypothesis, so do drop your ideas to the comments section.