7MB erosion now a priority for UPM, says minister

(CNS): Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan has revealed that the minority UPM government is working on a public-private partnership of some kind to undertake an undefined replenishment project to address what he said was the national emergency of erosion on Seven Mile Beach.

During his address at the Chamber of Commerce Legislative Luncheon on Thursday, he said the government was in the process of finalising options with the Department of Environment for the fastest way forward to re-nourish the affected areas on the southern end of the famous beach.

The ongoing erosion of the country’s major tourist attraction has been happening slowly for several years for a number of reasons, not least the excessive number of hard structures, including decks, pools, and sea walls, that have been allowed to be developed on the dynamic beach area.

The situation reached a crisis point this year. The government, however, appears reluctant to enforce the necessary managed retreat of those hard structures, which will be a necessary requirement if any costly beach nourishment project is to be anything more than a brief reprieve.

Bryan told the audience of Chamber members that having “categorised this issue as a national environmental and economic emergency”, the CIG will be increasing the National Conservation Fund or the tourism accommodation tax “to raise the monies to cover the cost of future re-nourishment initiatives, as it is accepted that, with the global weather changes, beach erosion will continue to
be an issue of the future”.

Bryan said the government also intends to talk with affected property owners and tourism stakeholders about a PPP funding model to pay for the initial re-nourishment strategy, but he offered few details on that idea to the Chamber audience.  

Speaking to the Chamber President Joanna Lawson in a brief staged Q&A after his address, Bryan said that the government was hoping to speed up the procurement process on the renourishment project using the constitutional provision for a national emergency.

He accepted that this was still in debate as government was having “some challenges with that” definition, but said most people would consider that it was.

“The longer we delay, the worse it gets, so we are trying to speed that up,” he said about the procurement. “It’s going to take a multi-million dollar approach,” he said, noting the time it can take to go through a procurement exercise.

He said the government was still talking to the AG’s office as well as stakeholders, and the government hoped to soon have a clear path and a timeline for this project so they could tell people how long it is going to take to get back to the familiar Seven Mile Beach.

However, all of the experts have said that without a managed retreat, the renourishment project could prove to be a waste of money.

The government had allocated $21 million to work on the nourishment project in the 2022 budget year. However, a series of meetings on the issue stopped abruptly in 2022 and the money, which was not spent, was reallocated into the general budget.

No new funding has been set aside since in the subsequent budget years. The government is now looking at a shared funding model with the landowners directly impacted being asked to contribute, and some have indicated willingness to partner with the CIG.

Speaking recently at the Cayman Islands Tourism Association’s annual meeting, Bryan called the erosion at the southern end of Seven Mile Beach “simply staggering”.

Ergun Berksoy, the owner of a large private house close to the Royal Palms site who constructed a seawall on the dynamic beach and has suffered the consequences, has pledged $3 million towards the renourishment project.

It’s not clear which other owners are willing to contribute or if the government is going to take the advice of the scientists and require some managed retreat to prevent the costly sand that will be placed in front of these seawalls and other concrete structures from being washed away in the first storm.