As you heard, one of the biggest concerns from the Coalition of NGOs about the September 1st Public Consultation on the proposed development at the Port of Belize is what they assert was a lack of meaningful consultation.
Another concern raised in their letter to CEO Williams is that the developers and the Department of Environment, the authority which hosted the public consultation, had no way of fielding online or virtual questions from the Belizeans who tuned into the live stream.
The Coalition pointed out that some participants posed questions in the Zoom and Facebook chat, but these valid questions from online viewers were not addressed.
For context, we take you back to a portion of the marathon meeting. Around the 3-hour mark, one online viewer asked the head table to justify with real-world examples where the dredging on the scale proposed for this project was successfully completed in other parts of the world.
Here's the back and forth:
Rodrigo F. Modernel - Engineer
"The alternative (1), geofabric containment, as far as we can see, is not a proven technology [inaudible] scale. It comes at a high risk of structural failure, leakages of fill, an outflow of turbidity, and excess poor processed water. In this sense, a proper structure design and impact assessment is missing for such a high-risk solution."
"I would like to ask you to at least five different projects or cases where this solution was applied on this scale, and it was successful."
William Neal - Facilitator/MC, Public Consultation
"Please proceed with your second question, and then we'll answer them both."
Rodrigo F. Modernel
"It is stated on page 238 that it's reasonable to assert that for both the direct impact from dredging and the indirect impact associated with the project, the increase in turbidity will be negligible. For such a massive project, it's not acceptable to state that without any kind of substantiation. The same goes for the doubtful effectiveness of the silt screen that will not block the water which flows with high turbidity. That's my second question."
William Neal
"Thank you very much, Rodrigo. Panel?"
Jelle Prins -Representative, Piedroba Consulting Group
"For this question, we'd like to bring in our team member from Belgium, Khris Baert, who is available via Zoom, to address the question. Will it be possible to repeat the first question again?"
Rodrigo F. Modernel
"Yeah, for sure. The first question-."
Luis Prieto y Munoz - Representative, Piedroba Consulting Group
"If he's on zoom, can he just send it to us in writing? That way, we can just text it to Chris. It was a bit hard to get some of that."
William Neal
"Okay, let me see. Rodrigo, are you still there? Since you're on Zoom, can you please put in the chat your questions?"
Rodrigo F. Modernel
"Yes, I just put in the chat the first one, and I put in the chat the second one."
William Neal
"Okay, we'll get an answer for you from our expert who is in Belgium, okay?"
The head table did circle back to these questions and allowed the expert from Belgium to respond. His response lasted about 7 minutes, and there were several viewers who complained that, in their opinion, he didn't actually respond to the specific inquiries that were made.
