Quarry applicant argues Cayman has fill shortage
(CNS): The Central Planning Authority has adjourned an application for the excavation of a new quarry in Meagre Bay Pond after developers argued that Cayman has a fill shortage and the policy relating to the country’s aggregate reserves is out of date. The CPA said the policy needs to be revisited, as members questioned the accuracy of the current fill reserves and said that the application should not be refused on that factor alone.
Following the 21 June meeting, when the application for a commercial quarry near the Meagre Bay Pond nature reserve was heard, the CPA said the applicants, Barrington Bennett and Amelia De Wood, would be required to conduct an environmental impact assessment before the board gives further consideration of the proposal.
But according to the minutes, during that meeting the developers dismissed the findings of the experts at the Department of Environment about the negative impact that quarrying is having on the Meagre Bay Pond nature reserve. They suggested that the mangroves at the location are not mangroves, though no explanation was given for that opinion.
However, most of the discussion focused on how the Aggregate Advisory Committee is overseeing the outdated policy, the lack of up-to-date information on the local supply and demand for marl, and the developers’ contention that there is a shortage.
The quarry applicants said the aggregate policy was flawed and had created a cartel, whereby prices were at the whim of operators, who were taking advantage of the policy. They said they had met with the AAC and claimed the members had agreed the policy was out of date, with a 25% margin of error on how they calculate whether or not there is enough supply coming from the current quarries.
The applicants said that, in reality, the committee does not know the current fill reserves and the policy was blocking the CPA from approving new quarries based on inaccurate information. However, the minutes document that there are currently nine quarries in operation on Grand Cayman.
The applicants also stated that they did not want to undertake the EIA unless it was a condition of approval because such an assessment is expensive and the application could still be refused once the aggregate stocks had been properly reviewed.
The CPA said it had only two options: adjourn for an EIA or refuse the application. However, the board told the applicants they could appeal the NCC’s directive regarding an EIA to Cabinet.
See the full minutes of the CPA meeting in the CNS Library.
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Category: development, Local News
Going to need all that and more for the East West Arterial.
seems to me NO ONE has the balls to say enough is enough.Day after day week after week the barges and aggregate ships arrive with the stuff that keeps so many developers happy with absolutely no regard for what Grand Cayman is becoming.A CONCRETE NIGHTMARE.someone in Tourism needs to listen to the folks that come here year after year
We have lost our charm and what used to make this such a wonderful place to visit.More construction leads to more traffic pro lems and increasing road rage.People are afraid to speak up even tho the whole scale development benefits the few and far between.
What happens with each new BIG/SMALL projects are new labourors coming in to fill these jobs?Somehow I think this is what is happening and this creates a snowball affect on traffic crime increase and very possibly social unrest.
Our future is at stake here and care must be taken to keep control of runaway development
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Peter, we supposedly elected a new “ government” (if you can call these undereducated people that) to slow development down. But it is still racing ahead with every square foot of land anywhere near GT or the sea being covered with condos or townhouses. And the cars keep coming in. As do the manual laborers to build the buildings, needing cheap accommodation and cheap cars. And the traffic gets worse. And the cost of living keeps on climbing. And Nero Panton and his cohort keep on fiddling while Cayman burns.
Capitalists have zero respect for humanity or the planet we reside on. They just want their money. And we allow them to have it.
THERE IS A Shortage!!! – business owner
I thought PACT was “elected” to slow down development. Everyone should look EVERY week at the CPA agendas to see what nonsense continues to go on in our island. Anywhere within a mile or so of town that has a half acre of spare land is applying for condo/apartment approval.
You fail to realise that the PACT consisted of Wayne and Heather. All the other members of the Government are simply opportunistic wannabes. Isaac, Sabrina, Jay, Jon Jon, Chris, Julie, Bernie and Andre were all supported by or negotiating with the PPM! Then Kenneth decided to play king maker and found a load of “incentives” which were provided by our own “new money” half billionaire who Kenneth proudly boasts is “his boy”. PACT is no more a party than the UDP. They were founded on greed and money and with the help of CMR who organized quasi riots took control with feel good promises of gambling and weed and equality for all. But you get the Government you deserve because you all knew better. Money talks I guess but this is the price we have paid!
The status quo want a Monaco type of economic society but it won’t work. It works in France because the blue collar workers leave Monaco to the countryside where they can find lower cost of living. Where are the lower blue collar workers going to go to find that here? Maybe Northside, East End? Too late everybody wants the same. I stopped at a fruit stand in the Eastern Districts and bought a pineapple for CI$13. Grocery store in town sells for $5.00.
No one is going sell anything cheaper when the cost of living is over 100 percent. We pay freight, insurance, and duties and then the cost and doubles, triples for profit margin?? We need CI$4000 per month for a family of 2. If 4 people are in a family you need $7000. Rent alone for 3 bed 2 bath is over 2500-3000 per month. Electricity is 800 and going up. Water bill is car washes irrigating your grass and plants to save food bill $2-300. Medical insurance is a disgrace, it’s only for young people. Old people pay 500-800 per month per person for one consultation per year? You all have got to be kidding. Everybody wants to be a millionaire by next year and we have lost control. Our industry is banking. Hotel/ condo tourism is only for high class.
Great so who needs fast food restaurants? The middle class families and old people? So if we don’t develop a lower cost housing to buy or rent where do you expect these workers to live? House lots as you go East are getting more and more expensive. Even in Cayman Brac with NO development its going to be a problem. So what’s the plan? The only cheap land in the Cayman Islands is the swampland!!!!
If the whole of the Caribbean and ALL the islands were to be struck off the map. It wouldn’t phase Global Warming or climate change or any other thing you want to call it. What’s the point of trying to save the planet? For who? Think about the rest of us!!
Cayman has a brain cell shortage
Cayman has an ethics and love for country issue.
Putting the environmental issues to one side (and they are considerable and should decide any such proposal), do the applicants have prior experience in owning and operating quarries in the Cayman Islands or elsewhere?
Is it really just the case that anyone can acquire property anywhere in the these islands and apply to excavate it for fill?
As far as the Pease Bay to Frank Sound area is concerned the quarries are so extensive at this point that there is almost an inland sea. The next move will be to create a port. And, indeed, that has been publicly mooted.
It is perfectly reasonable and rational for the public to expect and demand that CIG proceed carefully in relation to quarries.
This is no longer the Seventies.
Greed is consuming our beautiful country not by the day, but by the minute.
Tax shelters, money laundering, crony capitalism, gentrification, and destruction of the lands and soon, the seas.
It will be sooner than later that the best public beaches will be privatized with thousands of deck chairs leaving but a sliver for the plebes to “enjoy”.
After the door was opened for the wealthy to take over the country, it became clear that it will never be closed.
More concrete temples for the world’s wealthy and more shanty homes in the shadows they create, both literally and figuratively soon come.
Boss of Planning- open your eyes 👀 and stop this insanity
And in other news, North American turkeys protest Thanksgiving.
Do we get the stuff from somewhere where there is a Cayman connection…..and a graff link to some politician
Follow the money
I suspect that to be the case
We know about endangered species. But there are two things in Cayman that are not endangered: 1. Greedy rich developers,to whom we give all sorts of duty concession, and 2: purchasable elected official who will not stand up to protect what makes Cayman special,its environment and no diminishing beauty.
Approving this quarry would just be proof of that. I don’t care what name or acronym you give political parties/groups. They are in for the same reason as the developers. Greed.
Not only are they not endangered, they are protected
“Mother Nature is raped, mastered, controlled, conquered, mined. Her secrets are penetrated, and her womb is put into service of the man of science.”
“Seeing how mother earth is raped every day
Polluting the air and water with no end
Scraping the oceans for the last bit of fish
Saving the forests is a joke, they just pretend
While COP 26 trying to make some rules
taking Air and Water for fools
Exposing that 1% of us, more or less
is producing 66% of the mess
Now, they want to go to Mars
with no air to breathe in site
We just need to stop the smoke
then we can see the stars at night
They want to go to Mars
with no clean water to drink
We just need to clear our streams
saving our dams and rivers from the stink
They want to go to Mars
building a new home, but no grass
Poetic that those who will stay
Would need to clean up the mess
when the wannabe Martians are away.” (by Dewald)
The mega-rich seem to think there is a ‘Planet B’, at least for them. (Stephen Gospage)
Death of Mother Earth, never her rebirth
Evolution’s end, never will it mend
Never
#MeToo, Said Mother Earth
Quarry operator, now mangrove expert says they aren’t mangroves in the area. What next the pond is merely a mirage and so it the wildlife? Well what do random Facebookers, Twitters, Threads Heads and Chat GPT have to say about that? I guess an apple is not an apple in Cayman, its a pear just like 2+2=3. Let’s see if the Planning Board are swayed enough by the applicants and maybe their deep pocket financiers/ developers to score another JDAM strike on our fragile environment.
Finally, where, when and will our Premier comment on this? Pull your head out of your a$$ Wayne and walk the walk for once now man!
Wayne got what he wanted, Honorable for life and 4 years as Premier. His environmental position is the same as his regard for protection of women from violence and abuse, non existent and a cunning vote getting ploy. You all need to wake up! The man hoodwinked everybody. He’s probably out on his million dollar boat today, chuckling and waffling around the North Sound. Good job Newlands smh
Cayman Brac is already scarred with a huge unsightly quarry, why follow that lead? How about less commercial construction? No matter how much you build there is a segment on Cayman’s population that will never work. Continued runaway construction is only providing people from the remainder of the work with employment during and after construction/
Does applicant own the land they have applied for?
yeah lets keep importing more and more weight onto the ISLAND
So it sinks?
It’s not a ship, Chip.
Maybe we need a new quarry – I don’t know. But if we do, it should be because a proper plan was done not because of some chancers who want to make a quick buck. It should not harm the environment to enrich the few.
Right next to a protected surface water habitat, home and season retreat for hundreds of birds, some endangered? There are most likely some endemic species of flora and fauna that most likely would be impacted by such an operation.
When has the NRA/ Water Authority had such a plan to mitigate impacts from quarrying in such a sensitive area? Just look at High Rock quarry which was pillaged and polluted by quarry operators indiscriminately for decades, it’s now a wasteland. And right on top of the island’s largest freshwater lens at that.
Wasn’t there a recent plan to construct a shooting range adjacent to it, and it was quashed? This insane quarry proposal needs quashing too, we need it like a hole in the head.
We don’t have a quarry shortage; we have a construction overage. Can you not look at Miami and see what we will become unless we regain our senses? At least in Miami, a person can still drive, if they avoid stupid places at stupid times. We don’t have that option, having built right up to the edge of every major road. No room for infrastructure expansion.
Too many people, and the government wants more. Too much construction, and the government wants more. Too much pollution, and CIG apparently believes a 50-year-old problem can be mitigated. Well, let’s clean up the dump in a meaningful way — not just cap over it — and then let us see what we can do to preserve the few resources we have left.
Hint for those who are not paying attention: Building more monuments of opulence for the wealthy isn’t going to save us, or even enrich us. It will only make us ordinary and forgettable.
Cayman is not only running out of marl it has already ran out of space/land. I wish we could run out of greedy stupid developers soon And their lackey illiterate politicians. This 24×7 Rock is overdeveloped – find some other island to go to and destroy. We are sick and tired of all of you. Weed out the greedy numbskull and take them with you as well.
Not true. Approximately 17% of the land mass is developed. Grand Cayman is not running out of space/land anytime soon.
don’t bring facts into this!!!!
The majority of undeveloped land is natural habitat for native plants, trees and animals, and most of it is necessary for storm drainiage.
It is high time that the people of this country demand accountability to protect these areas and its critically important that the government utilize experts in flood management such as the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers NOW.
The constant meddling of swamps and natural drainage systems will prove to be catastrophic after a severe tropical storm.
Be certain that many structures that are believed to be free from flood damage are in fact, not.
When these new flood waters come, it is greed and lack of mitigation planning and enforcement that is to blame.
welcome to wonderland…cayman is a place with no long term sustainability plan and seems to consume itself a little bit more every day
Stop digging holes ! The quarries now dig below the water lens and what they are asking for is 50 feet deep. It is crazy . Please stop this.
“The applicants also stated that they did not want to undertake the EIA unless it was a condition of approval because such an assessment is expensive”
So, if you say yes, we will do the EIA, is basically what the applicants said. That is both laughable and pathetic.
Meagre Bay Pond is already being adversely affected by the current quarry activities. This application should be refused.
9:52 am Did you bother to read the CPA minutes or the CNS statement that said “The CPA said it had only two options: adjourn for an EIA or refuse the application”. Regardless of the applicant’s wishes regarding an EIA, the CPA cannot approve and application subject to the completion of an EIA. They either have to adjourn it for an EIA, or refuse it outright.
Or run ripshod over any recommendations by DOE to do an EIA just like in the case of the East West Arterial. Now they want to contest the law so I’d say they are hell bent on doing exactly what they proposed. Who’s going to stop them?
Start importing aggregate, before the whole island disappears. Would probably be cheaper too!
9:49 am Clearly you did not read the CPA minutes which, for your information are published online at https://www.planning.ky/wp-content/uploads/meetings/Mcpa1423.pdf item 2.3.If you had read the minutes you would know that aggregrate is already being imported at extortionate rates (because they are controlled essentially by a monopoly) and further, the imports are not meeting demand.
….Says a concerned quarry owner.
Brackets get together and stop Scott’s from chipping down the bluff and shipping it to Grand.Too much of the Bluff is being chipped/shipped away.
It’s not Scott’s anymore. They sold it to Schilling, who is trying to expand operations. Keep your eyes open.
Stop building on every sq.ft. That is left. The last thing we need is more cement and asphalt!