One other story coming off the Placencia peninsula might just be panic due to severe erosion affecting all coastal communities. But, it stirred up a lot of commotion in that part of the country, and so, we went looking for the facts.
Several days ago, a resident posted a video on social media which supposedly depicts a developer who was conducting dredging along the peninsula's coastline. The suggestion was that this developer was then hauling off the dredge material to be used as landfill elsewhere.
But, that smoking gun seems to have just fired a blank. We have contacted that developer for comment, and he told that he is being wrongfully accused. He said that indeed he was conducting some operations, but it was chiefly to help restore some portions of the peninsula's beachfront, which has been suffering from severe coastal erosion. He insisted that the activities were quote,"duly reported and mainly for the benefit of the community." End quote.
And, since the matter was brought to the press, the developer added quote, "It's unfortunate that some haters try to abuse your service." End quote.
Yesterday, some of the residents of Seine Bight told us that they are concerned about any sort of dredging activity because their peninsula is currently under attack by global warming:
Arthur Roy Williams - Resident, Seine Bight
"It's very alarming under one condition that whatever you take from the sea, the sea will try to get it back and the people who are approving this project are not taking that into consideration and neither are they waking global warming and factors that science has to offer."
Alexander Williams - Resident, Seine Bight
"The entire northern part of this peninsula starting from Riversdale all the way to Dr. James McClarey's residence where that airstrip is Seine Bright jurisdiction and anything that happens north of here is the sole responsibility of the Seine Bight village council. They are to go the mining and get a stop order for that in the name of people, I am not in the digging of the coast line, it will affect us, we are having serious erosion around the peninsula, so I called on the village council of Seine Bight to look after this matter and to see what they can do to stop and desist that development."
Becky Arzu - Seine Bight Village Councillor
"We have to understand that mother nature has it's way and if we do man made projects and if we create man made disaster, it will come and haunt us in the longer run. There is more than one dredging project going on in this community right now."
