back to Environment - Bimini, Bahamas

                                                                     Bill Parks

                                                                     919 SW 27th Place

                                                                     Boynton Beach, Florida 33435

                                                                     Tel: (561)-734-0095

                                                                     email: bertram25@worldnet.att.net

                                                                     12 Decmeber 2004

Editor

The Nassau Guardian

editor@nasguard.com

re: Bimini Bay Development

Dear Editor,

I have read with interest the recent articles in several Bahamas newspapers about continued environmental concerns with Gerardo Capo’s Bimini Bay development project on North Bimini.  The December 8 article in the Nassau Guardian described the project as “drastically scaled back”.  Another statement was that “when the agreement was signed, the 700-acre development was said to be ‘economically viable and environmentally sustainable’ as it was in keeping with the government's commitment to protecting the island's environs and natural resource’’.   After reading this and knowing the reality of what is planned for Bimini I find that I must respond to these misleading and omissive statements.

  The idea that this is a “scaled back” project or that anything is being  protected is absurd.  The same amount of mangroves to be destroyed under a plan presented the year before the new agreement will still be destroyed.  The same amount of dredging in and around North Sound and the rest of North Bimini will still happen.  With the possible exception of a tiny strip of sand and scrub on East Bimini the same amount of land will be scraped and filled.  Bimini’s biology and fisheries will die just as before.

So where is the “scaling back” that Mr. Capo’s representatives claim?  The answer is that ON PAPER they have reduced the number of dwellings they were supposedly going to build.  Since they still want to use all of the same land it’s likely that the original plan was nothing more than a poker bluff so that they could still build this environmental disaster but appear to have become “good environmentalists” by agreeing to a “reduction”.

Also in the article was this passage:

In March, Ambassador for the Environment Keod Smith, hailed the venture as a possible blueprint for other developments in the country.  The first agreement signed in July 1997 by the Free National Movement Government called for the construction of 930 hotel rooms, 3,500 condos and 611 single family homes.

Not mentioned was the second FNM agreement in 1998 that truly had scaled the project back to much less than what is approved now.  Under that plan far less of Bimini would have been impacted but at the time it was still considered too big.  Prior to the last election the PLP pointed this out and promised to do better.  Now that the government has changed many Biminites tell me they wonder why the project got bigger, not smaller?  If this project is a “blueprint for other developments” then gross environmental destruction will be the future of the Bahamas.  Environmental regulators, biologists and tourists from other countries who learn of this project are dismayed by what is being allowed in Bimini and state without exception that   “it would never be allowed to happen where I come from”.  Already as a direct result of the dredging that’s occurred conch and lobster are nowhere near as prevalent in Bimini as they were just a few years ago.  The bottom is covered with silt and the seagrasses are declining.  This is after just the beginning of Mr. Capo’s grand plans.  For his Phase I it’s reported that he has installed a sewage “deep injection” well and is pumping the waste 319 feet into the ground.  Shallow “deep injection” wells like this are being decommissioned in Florida because the contaminants work their way up through the porous limestone and enter the water through the sea bottom.   This leads to wide areas being buried in nasty, sewage loving algae that destroys the natural habitat.   In the Bimini Lagoon this algae soup will replace the once healthy sea grass conch, lobster and fish nursery.

From a fishery and ecology point of view Bimini is much larger and more important than it’s physical size.  Isolated in open water Bimini contains the only mangrove estuary and fish nursery on the northwest Great Bahama Bank and repopulates the sea bottom habitat over thousands of square miles.  Rich areas such as the Gingerbreads in the north and down to Orange Cay in the south all benefit from Bimini’s natural fish, lobster and conch producing engine.  Commercial fishermen from as far North as Great Abaco come to these areas to make their living but they won’t any more if the machine is broken by one greedy developer.  People need to understand that there is little difference between allowing a fleet of large fishing boats to come in from Korea to take the fish and letting a developer destroy the source of the fish.  The only difference is that one can throw out the Koreans but once Bimini is destroyed it cannot be undone.  The Koreans were stopped because of public outcry.  The same needs to happen to Mr. Capo in Bimini.

On December 10 it was announced that Wangari Maathai of Kenya won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.   Ms. Maathai, the first African woman to win the award, was chosen because of her work promoting peace through preservation of natural resources by sound environmental practice.  I mention this because Ms. Maathai’s selection shows that the world is increasingly recognizing that our future depends on preserving  the natural world and deriving sustainable benefits from it.  In an interview she told of working against great adversity, sometimes physical abuse,  to change the policies of her government that was determined to destroy the natural resources for a  quick, short term payoff to the detriment of the commoner.  She fought against this because she knew that the bulk of the citizens would be better served by their environment than by the greedy money hounds.   I can hope that the Bahamas will strive to keep pace with the changing world by following Ms. Maathai’s example.  Saving North Bimini would be a good start.