Cabinet approves damaging marine park dredging

(CNS): The Cayman Islands Government has given the green light for a private developer of a subdivision to dredge a canal in a marine protected area and mangrove buffer that the Department of Environment warned will cause serious and significant damage to a wide swathe of important and unique marine habitat.

Against the clear advice of the DoE’s scientists, Cabinet agreed to grant Harilyn Bodden and Newlands Sound Development Ltd a coastal works licence simply to allow a small number of large boat owners who might buy land there easier access to the sea.

The coastal works report that was conducted in September 2022 sets out in detail a catalogue of factors that will cause environmental damage to an area far wider than the footprint of the project, which is on 3.8 acres of crown property. The 100-foot wide by 1,626-foot long and 5-foot deep canal is for the benefit of a small number of people so that they will not have to trail their boats. The dredging proposes to take out some 67,885 cubic yards from the sea that the developer plans to use as fill on the sub-division.

The DoE’s coastal works review points out that the project is in a marine preserve, the whole point of which is to protect a breeding and nursery area for marine life. This proposed excavation will have an adverse impact on the seagrass beds and coastal mangroves, which support these breeding areas.

The project threatens some very healthy and increasingly rare seagrass beds, which are home to seagrasses, sponges and occasional coral colonies that support a variety of infauna, invertebrate and fish communities. Often referred to as a ‘transitional habitat’, the seagrass beds in this area complement the surrounding mangroves, providing a healthy ecosystem for marine life and aiding in the protection and stabilisation of the coastline.

Seagrass habitat is acknowledged to be one of the most valuable and vulnerable ecosystems, providing food and shelter for many marine species at different stages of their life cycles. The habitat along this Newlands coast has even more value as it is connected to adjacent mangroves. Seagrass is also very important in assisting with the challenges Cayman is facing with rising sea levels.

“Given the climate change predictions for the region, which include rising temperatures, sea-level rise and increased intensity of storm events, including storm surge, another beneficial function of seagrass beds is that they provide flood reduction and reduce erosion from wave action aiding in shore protection, particularly along beaches and shallow areas,” the DoE said as it outlined a long list of important eco-services this unique marine park provides.

The DoE pointed out how significant this area is as a nutrient sink, buffering and filtering nutrient and chemical inputs to the marine environment, aiding in water quality. It is also scientifically accepted that coastal ecosystems of mangroves, seagrass meadows and tidal marshes mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans at significantly higher rates per unit area than terrestrial forests, and the removal of seagrass results in carbon being released into the atmosphere.

The loss of the mangrove buffer will have a similar negative impact, compounding the overall issues with this proposal, which was why the DoE urged the government to decline the application.

The review also details the damage that the work will cause to the entire marine area and the danger posed to a host of marine life, given how the developer proposes to dredge. The DoE said that there are almost no mitigating measures that can be deployed to prevent this damage from sediment and turbidity because past experiences have demonstrated that silt screens simply don’t work.

“It is not possible to eliminate the impacts of the sediment plumes generated during a dredging
project of this scale through the use of silt screens, particularly when the sediments contain a high
percentage of silty fines as is typical of the nearshore sediments in the North Sound,” the DoE had warned.

The DoE also offered a number of alternative solutions regarding the inaccessibility to the water for larger boats, which is the only justification for the project by the applicant. The report goes into specific, scientific detail about this proposed project and the significant damage it will cause for a very limited benefit to a very small group of people, while Cayman as a whole will lose significantly as a result.

Yet despite all of this and its claims to be governing the country in a sustainable way, government’s inner circle still granted the licence. They did so even after successive previous administrations that had not claimed to be particularly ‘sustainable’ had opted to follow the policy of not allowing private development in marine protected areas.

However, this latest poor environmental decision by the current UPM government is one of many it has made that threaten Cayman’s ever-dwindling marine and terrestrial habitats. From the choice of route for the East-West Arterial Road Extension and the proposal to dredge for a commercial cargo port in Breakers to a new airport in Little Cayman and extending the runway at Owen Roberts into the North Sound, this administration is proving to be a very poor steward of the country’s important and valuable natural resource’s.

It is not clear what made the government decide to allow one developer of a relatively small sub-division permission to cause so much damage that will impact the wider country. CNS has contacted the minister responsible for sustainability and climate change, and we are awaiting a response.

See the full Coastal Works Review in the CNS Library.