It
was an excellent idea to get a Bahama Rock, a stateside company, to dredge the
harbour so that it can accommodate the new slew of deep-draft ships soon to be traversing
the Panama Canal. The problem now, it seems to me, is that Bahama Rock has
completed its task and they don’t want to go home. To give you an idea of what
I mean, you will see they have pushed their excavations so far north there is virtually
no space between the Garnet Levarity Highway and the water of the extended
harbour precluding the accommodation of future wharves and dockside facilities
of marine industries.
But
that is not all. Bahama Rock has now moved west to create a giant lagoon for no
better reason than to gain more limerock for export. This first came to light in 2008 when it was announced Bahama Rock had purchased 1000 acres of land from the
Port Authority west of the Levarity Highway. So this simply means they will
continue excavating until they own a humongous lake. It was even muted they
would build a bridge to access even more land north of the Eight Mile Rock
settlements. And presumably the unsettling blasting will not
stop. What is
going to happen to this great salt water lake? And what about damage to the environment, destruction
of flora/fauna and salinization of the aquifer? Will the saline ground water kill off
vegetation as has happened elsewhere? Doesn’t the government or Port Authority have somebody who could point
out that this was about to happen? Does anybody care?
This
all starts to raise an ethical problem. Bahamian land is part of our heritage (the
most important in fact, after our people) and we are hell-bent on exporting it!
Just imagine if the fill from the harbour could have been transported to low
lying areas in Grand Bahama - it might have gone some way to ameliorate the perennial
flooding. True, it might not have earned as much money for the ownership
families as selling the rock to foreigners, but the morality of keeping
Bahamian land in the Bahamas would have been maintained.
Christopher
Columbus stated on arriving at San Salvador stated that ‘all the ships of
Christendom’ could safely moor in the lee of the island (he was wrong of
course) but the massive expansion of Freeport Harbour may now just meet that observation
of Columbus. So, don’t be surprised if the extended harbour will not offer much
frontage for future marine industries. But naval fleets do not need as much
dock space as commercial marine use so don’t be surprised if, in ten or so
years from now, it might be attractive enough to become the home port for an
Atlantic Naval Fleet – perhaps one from Asia…
Peter Barratt is an architect/town planner who was formerly in charge of the
development of Freeport. He writes with first-hand knowledge of the Bahamas
having first visited the country in 1960. Because of his long experience in the
islands he has been able to record many interesting insights, observations and
historic moments that readers should find intriguing. He has published several books
about the island nation:
Grand Bahama,
Freeport Notebook and
Bahama Saga,
(the latter a historical novel about the islands). He has also written a full
colour work entitled:
Angelic Verses
and two other works are near publication:
The
Port at War and
St Peter Was Never There
.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his/her
private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of
TheBahamasWeekly.com
