Permits waived for owners to clean up 7MB debris
(CNS): The Ministry of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency (MSCR) has announced that due to erosion and “other storm-related impacts” that affected the southern end of Seven Mile Beach this month, owners do not need a coastal works permit to clean up their property. A combination of over-development, sea-level rise and the unusual storms in our area has left the famous beach eroded and the sea full of rubble, crumbled concrete and various other building debris as hard structures built on the beach fell into the ocean.
At a Cabinet meeting, it was decided to waive the application for a coastal work permit for the clean-up. Owners are now being asked to remove debris from the beach (if they have any left) and the water in front of their properties, as this material poses a risk to human health and safety and to the marine environment.
This one-off limited waiver does not include coastal projects that involve the construction of any structures, beach modification, or excavation of any kind. These projects are subject to the normal Coastal Works Permit Application process.
Property owners are advised to notify the relevant government agencies of their plans to remove the debris from the marine environment by completing the digital Coastal Works Debris Removal Notice form.
Upon completion of the form, the Departments of Planning, Lands and Survey, Environment, and the Recreation, Parks and Cemeteries Unit will automatically be informed of the property owners’ intentions. If necessary, each agency can then respond to the owners with comments. If the proposed project doesn’t meet the criteria outlined, a full Coastal Works Permit Application may be required.
The criteria for man-made debris removal from the crown seabed or the shoreline without a coastal works permit are as follows:
- Work must be conducted from shore; no heavy equipment shall enter the marine
environment. - Equipment used to remove the debris from the seabed/marine environment shall be such
that avoids excavating sand (e.g. use pinchers/grabbers, or rock buckets); any sand and
natural rubble shall be returned to the beach. - In instances where fine rubble/debris is to be removed, this will be done by hand
collection. - No causeway or fill material shall be placed on the beach (including for access).
- If a barge is to be used, it shall operate in water with a depth of 3 feet or greater only.
- Only man-made materials and debris shall be removed from the seabed with the
exception of large trees that have fallen into the sea and/or are obstructing access along
the foreshore. - The removal works shall not include construction of any structures, beach modification,
or excavation of any kind. - Materials shall be stockpiled a minimum of 50 feet from the current high water line.
- Removed debris shall be stockpiled on the parcel for inspection purposes to ensure that
no excavation of sand has occurred.
Property owners are advised that they, and not the government, will be liable for any and all liability arising from any activity by them, their agents, contractors or others working on their behalf in undertaking the clearing and removal of debris or related activity. The onus is on the property owner to ensure that all agents, contractors or others working on their behalf are authorised to do so and have all necessary, valid business licences and permits, including from the Department of Planning as necessary.
If a project requires the use of or access to private property not owned by the owner, the onus is on the property owner to liaise with the other relevant property owners to secure consent to use and access that private property.
For more information, email coastal.works@gov.ky
Property owners seeking support from the Public Works Department for the necessary heavy equipment are advised to contact the Manager for the Recreation, Parks and Cemeteries Unit at pwdhelpdesk@gov.ky.
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Category: Marine Environment, Science & Nature
Wonder if the resale value of condos at Laguna Del Mar, Regal Beach Club and Cayman Reef Resort will go down in value for not having a beach anymore?
always a good time to buy/sell…ask any realtor!
Learning that phrase is seemingly a prerequisite to graduating from the yoga guru/bartender->real estate vulture pipeline.
Your tide is coming in Cayman, be warned!
We are soon headed to a situation where the majority of homeowners and condominium owners will not be able to afford home insurance.
As a homeowner on the west coast of Florida, the writing is on the wall for Cayman. Florida home prices are beginning to collapse and the same thing will happen here when the next very big hurricane hits the Cayman Islands.
Suggest people seriously study what is going on in Florida and also look at failed beach replenishment projects which has cost many millions $$$$$ and has now resulted in washed out sand to the Gulf of Mexico.
This ongoing drivel from the climate scare folk. Sea levels were at their highest over 100Miillon years ago. They last peaked about 130,000 years ago. They’ll peak again. It has nothing to do with your plastic cola bottle or your nonsensical electric vehicle saving emissions.
wake up. Human impact on the global climate is utterly insignificant. You think it matters because you’re here now. You won’t be soon. And not because you use a paper straw (which came in a plastic bag).
Sea Level rise has zero zero zero to do with burning coal. What is wrong with y’all? The poles will melt. And they they will freeze again. You will not make one milimeter of difference to any of it. Ever.
yeah ignore scientists and believe this guy…..zzzzzz
I do love how not only are you boldly wrong but you actually think that you are the genius and that everyone is being duped- you think that a century and a half of dumping hundreds of billions of tonnes of additional C02 into the atmosphere, clear cutting billions of trees, decimating natural cycles of carbon capture by draining and filling in bogs, wetlands and other natural carbon sinks.
Life is simple when you can just disregard evidence and make sweeping declarations that just so happen to line up with the position that requires you to change nothing and do nothing
You do know that the very highest mountains once were covered in sea? That the earth, its core and crust and everything about it, is in permanent motion and change. That there have been billlions of years of life on earth with long periods of volatile conditions under which we – our species – could never survive, right? Under which temperatures changed, the skies were dark? And that after say 4.6 billion years of that, there will probably be another 7billion of it? If you believe in that sort of thing. You know, science.
The highest mountains were never covered by the sea. The rocks that comprise them may have been under water, but the tectonic forces that made them into mountains hadn’t grown them yet. You understand this, right?
I guess a few here didn’t know that plants love CO2, now that’s science.
The problems are what they are and WON’T go away by pointing them out. Structures are where they are period. Time to spend money, 30M to bring in sand and then every year probably going to take 5M to keep 7-Mile the way is was. Tax visitors $9 each and the yearly problem is fixed. Going to take the CIG to get the initial fix taken care of, the CIG is losing more than that by revenue at this point.
Circular argument: tax visitors to pay for disappearing beach with hope that visitors keep coming to pay to restore disappearing beach.
Yea, I’m sure as expensive as everything is, that $9 will be the break point of whether they should visit or not, ignorant.
What are you downvoters so scared of with bringing sand? It is not going to negatively affect anything. It is hard to see how buying sand wouldn’t fix the problem temporarily, and maybe for a significant period of time.
I would rather our public funds go directly into the hands of literal crackheads than these ultra wealthy developers get a dime to support their efforts to save the structures they were advised against placing where they did.
‘A combination of over-development, sea-level rise and the unusual storms in our area..”
Incorrect.
Its the fact that those currently sitting in Govt (and previous Govts) have ignored consultant reports that have been commissioned on the very subject of SMB erosion and how they could mitigate it before it got to this point.
Same goes for the roads, the dump, the education system, the list goes on.
Bunch of useless wastemen and wastewomen driving Cayman into the ground and to the point of no return.
this is but a taste of the devastation to come
There are TWO sets of people who have created this mess along SMB:
-1. Present and past governments because of GREED!
-2. The developers who were and are still being allowed to do as they pleased by the Governments, bending all the rules while being allowed to do so.
Let us not forget The NUMBER ONE RULE – Mother Nature does not discriminate and in this case, those who wronged her are rightly paying the high price. Absolutely no pity here from me.
Now the Cayman Islands will be hurt by such actions of thoughtless people.
The DoT will now have to brag about our 3 Mile Beach instead in their commercials and let’s see how many accolades shall roll in.
I am sure that no other work will be done while they have this opportunity – nothing to see here folks
‘A combination of over-development, sea-level rise and the unusual storms in our area’
This is just made up.
Over developed in comparison to what?
Sea level has hardly budged in the past 100 years! So tropical weather is now unusual?
Come on. It’s down to poor planning. Just as with the dump and public transport etc. stop clouding the issue with your own bias around environmental issues.
I get the point about development and sea level rise. But these most affected areas are not near newer development.
People make it sound like it’s this “greedy new stuff” causing all the issues. Most (if not all) the seawalls are on older properties.
If anything, the newer properties are better thought out and more beach friendly.
We need to drop this rhetoric that it’s the money grabbing new stuff to blame for all this. It’s a bunch of stuff that was built forever ago when the real estate was worth almost nothing.
Yes, and the new buildings are making the exact same mistakes! Why are we allowing MORE new coastal development to take the place of previous bad decision making?? We clearly need to pause and rethink how we want to approach the future. Something that should have been done with informed awareness 40 years ago. Informed decision making??? Who would suggest such a thing!
No excuse for our regulatory authorities not to have these clean up activities under a 24/7 microscope with readily available cameras and drones. But that’s too easy, in Cayman rules are there to be ignored, bent and broken because they know all they’ll get is a slap on the wrist.
Let’s see how many of those rules are totally ignored.
One Jamaican with a leaf blower on a single Sunday morning could put all the missing sand back.
Yet persons continue to be allowed to remove sand illegally from SMB by the truckload, all the time.
Sensible.
With all of the roadblocks deliberately thrown in by the DOE, you think anyone is actually going to do this? I know you fool too.
Then they should be charged with littering. No one gets to desecrate our beach and not clean up after themselves.
Nah. It’s on the beach so it’s yours now, remember?
It is ours to enjoy. But who put the rubbish there?
Natural vegetation line just went way up. Why is your condo on my property?
Because you allowed it to be.