Official gazette doesn’t set EWA plans in stone
(CNS): Comments by former East End MP Arden McLean at a public meeting in Savannah Thursday evening, which stirred up social media, were misleading, according to local attorney Steve McField. McLean claimed that because the East-West Arterial Road extension was gazetted in 2005, the decision had been made.
He said that the government should go ahead with the project and not abdicate the decision to the National Roads Authority or the National Conservation Council or allow the project to be derailed by the results of the environmental impact assessment or campaigns by local activists opposing it.
Responding to McLean’s comments, NRA Director Edward Howard told attendees that that there is a process that government officials must follow. Based on the findings of that process, it will be up to Cabinet to make the ultimate decision as to whether it goes ahead or not.
The proposal to take the EWA all the way to Frank Sound, cutting through the Central Mangrove Wetlands, is dividing the community, but Department of Environment (DoE) Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie pointed out that EIA’s don’t make decisions.
“This document is not going to say build the road or not build the road. The document is going to outline all of the potential impacts that could be associated with the road,” she explained. “It’s going to advise how those impacts can be either avoided in the first place or mitigated if they can’t be avoided. Then the decisionmakers will have the information that they need in order to make the decision on the road.”
Turning to concerns that the road would increase the risk of flooding to communities south of it, Ebanks-Petrie said it was “a real concern”, noting that there are existing examples in Cayman demonstrating the problems that emerge when you damn mangrove basins as in South Sound.
However, McLean insisted that because the road was gazetted and since no government had withdrawn this, it should go ahead, considering only how to minimise the impact. He demanded that the government say on the record whether or not it was going to build the road.
“The government needs to tell the people of this country whether or not this road is going to be built,” McLean said after berating the National Trust and Amplify Cayman for their campaigns against the road. “The premier needs to be here,” he added, as he argued that the gazette had created an obligation on the government’s part to ensure the road was built regardless.
Premier Wayne Panton had attended the public meeting earlier in the evening but had left before the public was invited to ask questions. Heather Bodden MP (SAV), a backbench member of government, was also at the meeting but did not respond to McLean.
Appearing on Radio Cayman’s For the Record talkshow the following morning, McField explained that gazetting the road does not mean “it’s a done deal”. He said the gazette is only to notify the public of the plans to build a road and the proposed route.
“Gazetting is only a statutory notice that a road is earmarked to go through a certain area and here’s the route that it is going to take,” McField said. “The same way they gazette it, they can un-gazette it, too.”
The point of the public meetings, which were both well attended, was to solicit comments from the public about what should be covered by the EIA to ensure that all potential concerns are covered, such as the flooding and the scale of the threat to the wetlands and the eco-services they provide.
Environmental campaigners, who are particularly concerned about the third section of the road from Woodland Drive in Bodden Town to Frank Sound, have also questioned whether this costly and potentially hazardous road will, in fact, address the current congestion. They point to myriad other issues that will need to be addressed for government to control the growing traffic chaos.
Factors that will undermine any potential reduction in commuter traffic jams include the bottleneck at Hurley’s Roundabout, the inadequate public transport system, the centralisation of commercial activity and the failure to manage population growth fuelled by imported labour.
As it launched its official campaign against the project, Amplify Cayman pointed out that so far building more roads has not solved traffic congestion. The activist group argued that the East-West Arterial extension, far from providing any benefit to commuters, will create even more problems.
“Time and time again, we see that more bypass roads lead to more development, and more development equals more traffic and carbon emissions,” the campaigners said. “Further, the proposed road will be below sea level, leaving Cayman less resilient during hurricane season. From a climate perspective, destroying mangroves increases greenhouse gas emissions and depletes our already limited healthy coastal ecosystems.”
Amplify Cayman has pleaded with Cabinet not to dismiss expert advice against harmful developments and urged the members to listen to public concern, expert advice and action groups. The group pointed to the harm development is proving to be to Cayman, as it decimates the marine and terrestrial environments, harms socioeconomic health, fractures communities and blocks beach access for local people.
The group said that building the road and allowing development in the wetlands would demonstrate a disregard for those negative impacts and conflict with the 2001 Environment Charter, Cayman’s Bill of Rights and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which the PACT government has said is forming the basis of its policies.
See the Amplify Cayman open letter in the CNS Library.
Watch the Amplify Cayman video and the public meeting on CIGTV below:
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Category: development, Land Habitat, Local News, Science & Nature
1.03 Just another attempt to divide and conquer Caymanians by trying to make Ezzard the bogeyman.We need the road. The persons trying to stop it do not care about Caymanians. They care about themselves and are living high of the hog, in other words they already have it made. Working in town and living within fifteen minutes of work they don’t care about the locals. Please dont let the expat activists win. Culverts under the road will solve the problemn of flooding to the South of the road and disruption of water going to wetlands to the North of the road. Stopping this road is being promoted by persons who suggest that Caymanians sjould ride bicycles to work from the Eastern Districts. Hogwash.
Why did people from West Bay have to sit in traffic for hours before the By-Pass was built with the People’s Tax Money???????????????
I’ll give you a Hint…………..
SO THAT All the property some Caymanians owned was sold………
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/business/kenneth-dart-cayman-islands.amp.html
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/kenneth-dart-cayman-islands-property-empire-tax-haven-a9162671.html%3famp
Just a thought but instead of the majority of the workers going to Georgetown, Seven mile beach, and Camana bay every mourning and most school kids also why not spread the work around the island so many workers can work on the other sides? How about asking Dart nicely to build another Camana bay office park in Frank Sound where there is already a very big underutilized school? And maybe another (Better thought out) dump. What say you?
If no alternatives such as a Proper public transportation system or perhaps car pooling policies, maybe even staggered work times, if some or all of these are not implemented while the new highway is being considered/built, then the new roadways will only maintain the status quo of trying to keep up with the ever increasing car usage.
It won’t change a thing in the traffic congestion we have today, I’m betting it will exacerbate it.
Arden, go farm your land & hush-up. Your time for soapbox noise ended when the East Enders sent you packing for non-performance & real leadership, actual caring for your district (are you back sleeping there now?)
Arden’s right and he has my full support. Pave the island and be done with it. If some people want to go out and preserve mosquitoes, they can put some tires in their backyards.
I agree the bottlenecks such as Grand Harbour need to be done, yes! But the EWA extension also needs to be completed, at least to Pease Bay, west of Meagre Bay Pond, at the very least.
There is no need to fear flooding as the mitigation engineering proposed by the NRA clearly shows the road elevated in those areas. The little ribbon of a road that has served Grand Cayman for a hundred years now has long outgrown its capacity to handle today’s traffic needs safely.
You have some mitigation engineering the rest of us don’t?
Maybe in the future, the government should have the public consultation prior to hiring foreign consultants. This should have been done throughout the island and not restricted to two meetings.
We can thank Mr McField for his legal opinion on this but greed in all its forms associated with this road is the main reason behind it.
Maybe the ‘official gazette’ doesn’t etch it in stone, but the greedy Generational Caymanians that hold land title will. I’m disgusted by my countrymen. They have been and continue to sell our country to the highest bidder. STOP blaming the bidders, that is what they do. IT is us that have the option to not sell out, and my countrymen have no ability to ignore small $$$ for a poor return. Shame on us.
Where in the Roads Law does it say you can ‘un-gazette’ a road.. if there ever is a word? There is no mechanism in law for this.
Where in the law can you drive a motorized bicycle on a public road? Or a good delivery scooter in a bicycle lane?
Laws mean nothing here, you just be new.
*food delivery. I really should stop posting while driving.
I wonder how many roads have been Gazetted over the last twenty years and have never been built or completed…?
Such a friggin waste of time. Like seriously how much is all this costing when some of us ain’t evenn afford a vehicle let alone havin a job. Figure a way for government and workers to work out east or from home.
This road will not help traffic. It all bottlenecks right at Grand Harbor and the commute is fine up until that point. There is nothing wrong with the current roads, just the amount of cars using the roads. With a proper public transport system to help with moving students and workers, there will be far less traffic on the roads. I don’t understand why this solution is not even considered…
Gotta consider who loses out when there’s less cars on the road.
Fewer, not less. Come on, did you ever go to school?
looses
Below today’s sea level?
Or below a higher estimated future sea level?
50A29, a nice 12 acres, looks pretty landlocked to me. Wonder who might want access?
Land registry say it belongs to a sole owner.
One Denison Ezzard Miller.
Imagine that.
He is all of a sudden in support of the road. When he was in office he was against any development that could benefit Dart who is also reputed to be a major owner of land in the area.
Ezzard you are a sell out. You and Arden don’t represent the districts and cannot speak for us!
Seeing as the proposed road goes nowhere near that parcel what are you going on about?
You can pretend all you want but everyone knows how the little side road gig goes.
In order to disregard an EIA, and overrule reasonable public objections, a public need should have to be outlined where the new road is the only actionable solution to some defined problem. Other than the east end quarry owners and former Minister spec land owners, who stands to gain here?
One has to be dumb, blind and deaf not to see that EWA would lead to more development, flooding, destroy wild life habitats, BUT DO NOTHING to solve the traffic problem.
Build the darn overpasses at bottlenecks. Period.