February 12 is new date for NEAC meeting

Two southern organizations have submitted their concerns on the proposed US$50 million cruise port which Norwegian Cruise Lines proposes to build at Harvest Caye, to the Department of the Environment (DoE) and the National Environmental Appraisal Committee (NEAC), calling on them to require Norwegian to redo the EIA for the project—or to perhaps scrap it altogether.

A public consultation was held on the project a week ago in Independence Village, Stann Creek, and Amandala has been informed that an NEAC meeting to consider the project will not be held today, as was originally scheduled, but will be pushed back two weeks, until February 12, 2014, due to concerns about the project document.

We understand that the postponement was proposed to allow Norwegian an opportunity to cure some of the deficiencies of the existing EIA – an EIA which was adapted from a previously approved EIA for an eco-tourist development on the same island.

The EIA has been the subject of controversy, particularly since some portions of it were never updated. Evaristo Avella has been identified as a social expert in the document; however, he has told PGTV that he has never given input on the EIA and would never have, “because it is so controversial.”

In commenting on the Norwegian EIA, Peninsula Citizens for Sustainable Development (PCSD)—a community organization for residents of Maya Beach, Seine Bight and Placencia—said that, because of the multiple issues with the EIA, “the DOE and NEAC should require the entire EIA to be redone…”

It says that the EIA uses very old statistics, and the 2010 census results were completely ignored.

PCSD has submitted assessments by Dr. Mark Chernaik of E-Law International and from Lloyd Engineering, Inc., an engineering firm that specializes in the design, construction and management of port and harbor facilities, plus additional comments on the NCL Geotechnical Report by Dr. Chernaik (the “Chernaik Geotechnical Assessment”).

It says that, “The NCL EIA does not adequately address the issues involving the source of potable water for Harvest Caye and the effect of abstraction and dredging on the drinking water for the people of Independence/Mango Creek, Placencia and other communities of southern Belize.”

The PCSD also addresses the issue of dredging, saying, “The environmentally devastating impacts of massive dredging and resulting siltation due to the composition of the seabed and sub-bed in the area of Harvest Caye are also not adequately addressed in the NCL EIA due to its submission to DOE and NEAC before NCL’s Geotechnical Report was available.”

It added that “…an analysis of the continuous maintenance dredging that will need to take place for the proposed channel is completely missing from the NCL EIA.”

The PCSD says that, “While NCL makes big assertions about only developing 24.16 acres (land and sea) out of 71 acres at Harvest Caye, NCL attempts to obfuscate its intent to fill another 38.05 acres of the Caye and increase the size of the existing beach by approximately 11 acres, thereby destroying most of the mangrove and littoral forests on the Caye, with caye littoral forests being one of the most endangered eco-systems in Belize.”

According to the community organization, “The EIA completely ignores the cumulative impact of this development when combined with all other approved developments in the area on water quality and quantity, road traffic, infrastructure, the effect of a cruise ship port on overnight tourism, land use patterns and water quality, all as required by Section C of the NCL EIA’s Terms of Reference (TOR).”

It added that, “The EIA’s failure to adequately and comprehensively address these and other issues… provides no rational basis on which a decision can be made to approve this project based on this EIA, and DOE and NEAC should require the entire EIA to be redone,”

Stewart Krohn, Chairman, Placencia Chapter, Belize Tourism Industry Association, says, “We urge NEAC and the DOE to order NCL to file a whole new EIA that addresses the reality of their project and not a six-year-old proposal for an island hotel. We also ask NEAC to require a structured public hearing on the new EIA as provided by the Environmental Protection Act.”

Krohn said that, “It is our belief that the responses by the developer to questions posed by the audience that night [of the public hearing] only serve to reinforce the points made in our analysis. We point particularly to assertions by Mr. Darley that NCL will do all its own tendering of guests and employees between Harvest Caye and Malacate and that if Belizeans did not avail themselves of the ‘opportunities’ offered by NCL on the island, then NCL would simply bring in ‘Filipinos and Europeans’ to fill those slots.”

Krohn said that both of these statements make it abundantly clear that NCL is woefully ignorant of Belizean law, culture and custom.

“It also demonstrates that the many embarrassing errors and omissions of the EIA are not simply the product of time pressures and incompetence on the part of the EIA preparer, but form part of an overall attitude of disdain by NCL for the entire EIA process,” he said.

An NCL rep has said to us that, “We are making plans to disseminate further accurate information directly to the public so they can make an informed decision.”

The BTIA also says that whereas Belizean officials have said that the project will create up to 1,000 jobs, the Harvest Caye EIA from Norwegian calls for only 250 jobs, including both the caye and Malacate on the mainland, which will be a transfer point for other onshore stops.

The BTIA says that since Norwegian will be receiving US$4 of the US$7 collected in head tax from each tourist, “NCL will recover its full capital investment from Belizean taxpayers well before its exclusive 25 year concession has expired.”

It went on to note that “…the citizens of Belize will pay back NCL every penny of their US$50 million investment! No hotel in Belize has ever received a penny’s worth of refund of the hotel tax. In fact no project anywhere in Belize has ever received this kind of special treatment.”

The BTIA says that, “Based on the EIA, over a million cubic meters will be dredged from the sea bed to create the marina, lagoon, channel, and a turning bay for the development on Harvest Caye. That’s an awful lot of digging for a ‘nature park’. The NCL EIA doesn’t even discuss—much less evaluate and quantify—the amount and type of dredging that will be needed for underground pipelines for electricity and possibly water.”

It furthermore added that “according to NCL’s own geotechnical report, the channel to be dredged (974,962 cubic meters) is mostly soft soils that will collapse back in on themselves, requiring continuous maintenance dredging – a matter which is also not mentioned in the EIA.”

The BTIA asks “the DOE, NEAC and people of Belize to reject the Harvest Caye cruise port in its entirety, as the minor benefits of the project are far outweighed by the costs to the environment, economy and future welfare of the nation of Belize.”

Amandala understands that NEAC intends to give Norwegian a fair opportunity to correct the faults of the EIA.