Caribbean Style

Charter yacht operators and all tourist businesses should be aware that there are plans to expand the runway at Beef Island to bring in jets. This, only 12 years since the previous airport expansion broke ground, beginning an uproar in terms of environmental infractions that stood to destroy Hans Creek, Trellis Bay and surrounding areas.

At that time, the VI was advised that it could not expand the runway farther out than where it is now. The current effort is not part of any necessary master plan for development in the VI, but it is being fast-tracked by the government. If it goes ahead, it will effectively block off Trellis Bay and destroy real estate values from at least Hodges Creek to Beef Island, including Scrub and Camanoe (because of noise pollution), and it will basically mean that the eastern “hub” for charter boats will be destroyed, thus severely limiting places where boats can go.

The Trellis Bay/Marina Cay area is the great stop-off location between major anchorages.   I believe that the members of the charter yacht industry, along with their partners in the BVI Tourist Board, BVI Chamber of Commerce and Hotel Association, and the Marine Association, should play an active role in the current studies done to get this runway built.

Terms of reference

My understanding is that the terms of reference for developments — and certainly a development of this magnitude — require a scoping study to be done to assess the references for an environmental impact assessment and an environmental management plan. The terms of reference for this proposal apparently have been put together quickly by the Town and Country Planning Department, and I have been led to believe that the government is in a hurry and is fast-tracking the studies being done.

I am also led to believe that the government says there is no time to do proper studies that naturally take time. The studies currently being done are not an EIA or an EMP, although they will be called that.

One of the major concerns environmentally is that the runway will either block off Trellis Bay by extending almost all the way to Sprat Rock at the entrance to Trellis, or that the runway will be realigned and will extend into the channel between Trellis and Marina Cay — I believe to within 250 metres of Great Camanoe.

The hydrographic studies are being fast-tracked as well, and apparently are being carried out by a company that bases information on modeling instead of hardcore data. The company seems to have connections here with a commercial dive operation but little else showing on the Internet in terms of credentials and qualification to do hydrographic studies, despite the fact that it is listed as a United States-based company. It has done previous work with the BVI Ports Authority, but it also pats itself on the back for doing coastal development in the US along a piece of barren shoreline. This brings to mind terminology used by a local development company during the last airport construction phase: It wanted to “enhance” a salt pond by digging out the pond, lining it with plastic, and collecting freshwater!

Social impact questions

In addition, there is supposed to be a social impact assessment carried out, but so far no one I know who would have valuable input or who might be affected by the airport has been interviewed. These people include stakeholders connected within the marine industry, and businesses and private houses that are in the area that would be most affected by noise pollution, possible degradation of the environment, and consequent loss of real estate value and quality of life.

While the government may feel that this project needs to be fast-tracked, it would be a massive civil engineering project and will cost a massive amount of money. So on that ground as a taxpayer, I wonder why we don’t see the completion of the current biggest civil engineering project in the VI: the new hospital.

The benefits to the VI of a lengthened runway need to be assessed in a timely manner, as the theory “build it and they will come” may not bear fruit. Instead, it may be that by destroying even more of the environment and the incredible anchorages and little bays that make the VI the charter capital of the world, people will not want to come and sail and dive in our waters and play on our beaches.

Past experience

From 2000 to 2004, I sat on the Airport Environmental Management Group (AEMG) meetings. This group was a mitigation forum between the government, the airport contractors, and environmentalists including the National Parks Trust and the Conservation and Fisheries Department. The AEMG was required in May 2000 after four months of disastrous environmental infractions starting when the current airport expansion broke ground in January 2000.

The AEMG was forced on the government by the demands of the funding agencies after they learned that the government had not given any brief to the designers of the airport to follow what was laid out in the EIA, which was funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development and which the VI government tried to hide, saying it was not a public document.