NCC members express deep concern over quarries
Clearing prior to planning permission and quarrying underway at the Brac quarry (Source: DoE) 
DoE site visit (30 March 2023) photos show rock from the West End Quarry on the Salt Water Pond Trail and damage to the boardwalk. (Source: NCC meeting Agenda) 
Aerial image showing the location of the site in relation to the Splits and the Salt Water Pond Trail, owned by the Trust (Source: NCC Agenda)
(CNS): A quarrying operation on Cayman Brac that has expanded its footprint without planning permission and a separate application for an additional quarry in Bodden Town on Grand Cayman fuelled a list of concerns for the National Conservation Council when it met for the first time this year on Wednesday with its new line-up. The lack of options frustrated members, as both quarries are impacting the environment and a historic trail, but there is little the NCC can do about it.
The Cayman Brac and Little Cayman Development Control Board (DCB) has received two planning applications from Scott Development. These were reviewed by the Department of Environment on behalf of the NCC, and the technical experts concluded that a full environmental impact assessment was not needed. “But there are major adverse effects that need to be taken into consideration by the DCB,” they stated in the screening opinion.
The first application is for after-the-fact permission, as the developer has already begun expanding the quarrying operations. The second is to begin quarrying on another 11.8 acres adjacent to the existing quarry on Block 95C, Parcel 199, where a considerable amount of woodland was cleared before planning permission was granted.
As the NCC discussed the issue, DoE Senior Environmental Assessment Officer Lauren Dombowsky outlined the detrimental impacts the quarry is having on the environment and the encroachment on a historic trail around the well-known Saltwater Pond, which is owned by the National Trust for the Cayman Islands. She explained how the trail is sometimes closed when blasting is going on because rocks flying from the explosion have been hitting the boardwalk.
When the trail isn’t closed, it poses a risk to human life, and as the quarry gets closer and closer to the tourist amenity, the buffer that blocked the view of the quarry from the natural area has also been cleared.
“We don’t need further technical studies to identify that this is impacting the trail,” Dombowsky said, adding that an EIA would not offer any more information beyond the damage that can already be seen. She said that the trail had been seriously impacted, important habitat had been cleared, and at the very least, a dust management plan should be in place.
Frank Roulstone, the NCC member for the National Trust, said it was an important historic trail and a culturally significant right of way leading to the south side of the island. “It’s an absolute disgrace to see our built heritage being destroyed,” he said about the trail, which, he noted, belongs to the people of the Cayman Islands.
As an adjacent landowner to the Scott Development quarry, the Trust has complained about both applications. In an objection letter to the DCB, Roulstone noted that the developer did not abide by previous DCB directions. Overall, the Trust objects to the clearing of habitat, the danger to users from the blasting and the flying rocks, as well as the damage that those rocks have caused to the trail and boardwalk, and the “wanton destruction of the woodland”.
Roulstone said that the developer should not be rewarded with planning permission to quarry even more, given the “abuse of process” and the “reckless disregard for the law”.
As members raised concerns that Scotts had not faced any consequences for land clearing and quarrying without planning permission, it was suggested the NCC should recommend some form of compensation for the lost natural resources.
DoE Director Gina Petrie-Ebanks explained that there was nothing in the National Conservation Act that gave the NCC the power to direct the DCB in this case, but the DoE could recommend some form of compensation for the damage being caused to the environment and the trail.
She explained that unless land is already under a conservation plan or is an officially protected area, there is very little that the DoE or the NCC could do to protect sites like this. “We are left, as we are with 90% of the planning applications that we look at… with just making recommendations,” she said.
Patricia Bradley, who represents the Sister Islands on the NCC, pointed out that with no development plan for Cayman Brac, curbing the expansion of the quarrying there has seemed impossible.
Ebanks-Petrie agreed that “so many of the issues that we are dealing with stem from the lack of proper planning regulations” and said the National Conservation Act could not possibly fill the gap in the absence of a development plan. However, she also noted that many of the questions and concerns the members had about the quarrying and its adverse effects were under the remit of planning and its aggregate sub-committee.
“The fact that there has been this much quarrying outside of their planning permission and no action has been taken thus far is astounding to me,” she said, as members suggested that the developers be asked to produce their future plans for the quarry.
Lisa Hurlston-McKenzie, a long-standing NCC member, also raised the idea of a strategic EIA for all quarrying as rock from the Brac also feeds development in Grand Cayman. Ebanks-Petrie said she would put that suggestion to the aggregate committee.
The NCC voted not to require an EIA for the after-the-fact work or the proposed new expansion at the Brac quarry but to make a number of recommendations, outline the concerns they had and raise the idea of a broader EIA for all quarrying on both islands.
The council had previously voted to direct an EIA for the proposed quarry next to Meagre Bay Pond in Bodden Town, which is a protected area, because of the “severe threat to biodiversity” and the knock-on impact of the Bodden Town quarries to the Central Mangrove Wetland to the north.
The EIA, which the council called for last year, is needed to address the potential significant adverse effects on the terrestrial ecology and hydrology. However, the DoE said that the existing quarries are already damaging the protected pond. Dombowsky explained that the applicants had requested a scoping opinion to see what should be covered by the EIA.
This will require the formation of an environmental assessment board, and the process must ensure that the proposed quarry is in accordance with the Meagre Bay Pond Management Plan adopted by Cabinet. This plan has already noted that the quarrying in this area is a severe threat to biodiversity, and the objective is to restore the near-natural hydrology of the pond.
See the NCC meeting agenda in the CNS Library.
Watch full NCC meeting below on CIGTV, which also covers the EIA requirements for the airport and further regulations regarding the Alien Species Act.
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Category: development, Land Habitat, Local News, Science & Nature
and then what will they fill the huge hole with that they created when they’re done? that’s more worrying….
We import workers. Why not rocks?
6:07 pm We DO import aggregate and that’s part of the problem….it’s MORE expensive (due to a monopoly stronghold) to import than to quarry locally.
Please explain this monopoly stronghold. I’m unaware of it.
Just import rocks from an island not called Cayman.
When Scott Development blasts down into the Brac water lens, then game over. Why should they be allowed to mine the bluff and ship it to Grand Cayman for more unnecessary high-rise hotels? It is time we all said “no”. They have done more than enough.
Does all this development benefit Caymanians? Well, certainly the Caymanians who sell the fill, but anyone else?
Time to stop endangering the future of the Cayman Islands.
CIG, have some guts. Do the job we elected you for. I’m just sorry I’m too afraid to sign my name.
“Developers”. The only thing being developed is their bank accounts.
nah, the ones on 7mb are developing beach erosion like mad
and not a damn thing will happen to the offenders
the beat goes on
Yes, we are running out of rocks, just like air and water.
18(6) When, within the period mentioned in subsection (5), an application is made to the Director under this Part for permission-
(a) for the retention on the land of any buildings or works to which the enforcement notice relates; or
(b) for the continuance of any use of the land to which the enforcement notice relates, the operation of the enforcement notice shall be suspended pending the final determination of the application, and if the permission applied for is granted on that application, the enforcement notice shall not take effect.
the above section of the Planning law which allows after the fact applications to be made needs to be removed. There is no point in giving the Planning department enforcement powers which can be overridden by Cabinet. there is already an appeal process in the law, why is it that this extra unnecessary step was added? Was this put there to assist the developers with fast tracking their applications by building without permission and getting the completed works approved after the fact? In the current case the money they will make from the fill in the quarry justifies the after the fact planning fees! Its a win win for the developers.
This legislation is so non-sensical. Planning issues an enforcement notice and then the offender is allowed to apply to the Director of Planning to retain the offending structure despite the enforcement notice and the decision to take corrective action. Basically, this requires that the Director overrule his own department!
The farce goes: once quarries exceed excavations below MSL, the law is silent on how deep they can continue to go. There is no agency inspecting, fining, or stopping them from shuffling aggregate piles and obscuring the origin of the illegal material. Money machine.
The Water Authority administers quarry licences but do nothing apart from use their trusty rubber stamp.
They are very busy mitigating the impending environmental disaster that is their sewerage treatment plant.
jk.
not an accident or oversight
This is Cayman’s plan to deal with rising oceans. We’ve got one island high enough to stay above the water. Let’s quarry it down to a nub and ship the fill to the bigger island that will be under water one day. To fill in mangrove swamps and make roads and stuff.
Genius!
Stop chipping away the Bluff for export by Barge to Grand
It’s easy. Just say no. People who break the law and ask for foregiveness later by submitting a planning application when they get found are are criminals and should be treated as such. Not rewarded by being granted the permission.
Fine them, make them put things back how they were.
We do not want or need any more of our precious resources and wildlife destroyed. If we need fill, we can bring it in on a ship and let the developers pay for it.
no stopping this circus
Make them refill and landscape what they dug out without permission or no more permits. Got to get peoples’ attention. Sue for damage to the trail. Stop being cowards.
better chance of us landing on the moon
for the punishment to be effective it needs to:
1) level a fine that is high enought to make breaking the law untenable,
2) also ban the company/person from re-applying for the project.
better chance of punishment by the duppy
when no one wants to live here and the population starts to decline it will stop
Exactly. Who is all the development for? It is for the same people who complain about the environmental impacts out of one side of their mouth yet they have no problem inhabiting up until recently viable red mangrove estuaries and other wetland areas or environmentally sensitive areas, all the while increasing the ever expanding need for infrastructure, housing and commercial enterprises by their very presence here. You cannot have it both ways, but they think that they can. Greed is not good, neither is hypocrisy.
Development is for keeping all the services we get , without having to pay income tax.
It’s not a question of greed…….for the continuation of our way of life, it is an absolute need….!!
That is how government pays for roads, schools, medical services, handouts to our Jamaican unemployed and so on.
5:47 you hit the nail on the head. If they want to stop development (which is a pillar of our economy as you’ve pointed out), then they better figure out another way to tax us, to pay for infrastructure, human services etc.
By then it is too late.