'Threat' of a new port
PORT SPAIN
Petroleumworldtt.com
03 02 08
About one month ago, the National Energy Corporation
(NEC) announced plans to establish a mammoth industrial
port to occupy 255 hectares of reclaimed land in
the Gulf of Paria.
The new port will be named the Point Lisas South
Industrial Port and is currently estimated at a
cost of $960 million, to be funded by the State
through the Public Sector Investment Programme
(PSIP).
It will begin south of Phoenix Park Gas Processors
Ltd and stretch as far south as the existing Claxton
Bay fishing bay. The proposed port will also be
located less than five kilometres south of the
Plipdeco Port, in which Government has a 51 per
cent stake. The NEC denies that the new port will
compete with the Port of Port of Spain and Plipdeco
port, saying that it will be servicing industries
that are out of their league.
The NEC disclosed that the port will eventually
end with nine berths, and a new four-lane highway
will be created to link it to the Indian Trail
flyover, which will undergo a full upgrade.
Also
according to the "master plan":
- There will be an overpass crossing the Southern
Main Road.
- Trinity Power (formerly InCogen) will be proceeding
into a full upgrade to facilitate energy for the
new estate.
- Industries will be utilising 300 hectares of
land each to create a buffer zone for explosions,
emissions and dispersion of particulate matter
into acceptable levels.
The port will be located immediately south of
the Yara channel.
Engineer John Jones told the Sunday Express that
the port should not negatively affect the communities
from California to Claxton Bay, but will instead
provide employment directly and through downstream
industries.
"Significant industries such as polypropylene
(plastics), iron and steel and calcium chloride
can use this port. These industries can generate
permanent employment for the communities of California
and Claxton Bay," he said.
But as NEC, having completed its EIA, awaits the
granting of a CEC from the EMA to start construction,
both fisherfolk and conservationists vent their
frustrations about the social, economic and environmental
effects of this plan.
Ecology
will be
destroyed
Local
activists are unconvinced that the National Energy
Corporation (NEC) can restore the ecology
of Claxton Bay and they feel that no effort to
even do so will be made after the port is established.
Environmentalist Prof Julien Kenny laughed humourlessly
at the NEC's claim that it will replace 30 hectares
of the indigenous mangrove-50 hectares of which
will be cleared for the new port.
"Mangrove is touchy about where it grows.
The whole question of replanting is highly dubious," he
said.
It is not as easy as land re-forestation, he added,
pointing out that once the mangrove is removed,
the soft, muddy soil that it favours will be eroded
quickly.
"It raises the question of where the mangrove
is going to be replanted," Kenny said. "This
is one of the reasons that mangrove is preserved;
you can't just go up the coast and plant mangrove."
Kenny zeroed in on Clifton Beach-once a popular
bathing spot on the south east peninsula but now
an abandoned wasteland. Many have blamed industries-namely
Atlantic LNG-for erosion and pollution of the shore.
"It was a beautiful beach but Atlantic LNG
needed the channel and, when they built it, they
contributed to accelerated erosion," Kenny
said.
With the gulf already severely depleted of fishstock,
the state is, in effect, preparing to sacrifice
the fisherfolk of that area, Kenny said of plans
to build the port.
"The fisherfolk fall into that category of
people who apparently do not matter," he stated.
"The
guys who walk out of their homes and fish off
the beaches will suffer-not the trawlers
who are out on the sea picking up everything they
can get."
Kenny said he is also seeing a pattern of law-breaking
in the State's land use policies.
"We do not have comprehensive physical planning-it
is, in effect, a free-for-all with the various
government agencies, especially in energy," he
said.
"Developing
these industrial estates is not done according
to a national plan."
Kenny said the Town and Country Act of 1968 dictates
to the relevant ministers that Parliament must
decide on land use changes-not Cabinet nor the
individual ministers.
"The Government simply goes ahead with repeatedly
breaking the law of the land because the people
allow them to do it," Kenny said.
The NEC is a lot more confident of the restoration
of the area.
"The recolonisation of mangrove is a natural
process and NEC would create an area of approximately
100 hectares where natural recolonisation by mangrove
will occur," claimed engineer John Jones.
Asked whether the NEC had in its possession data
to support its claims that the mangrove can be
re-created, Jones said there was supporting evidence
in three areas in Point Lisas Couva such as, for
example, the mouth of the Couva River.
"The NEC would make additional areas for
mangrove regeneration which would be three times
the amount that may be destroyed. This would eventually
enhance the ecology of the area," he insisted.
Field
naturalist Reginald Potter, however, said the
overall environmental impact could be "horrific" and
criticised the Environmental Management Authority
(EMA) for accepting a subdivided application for
a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC).
A subdivided application is when the Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) is done in fragments instead
of on the entire area earmarked for industrialisation.
Giving his personal opinion, and not speaking
on behalf of the Field Naturalists Association
of which he is president, Potter also spoke against
the proposed Essar Steel Plant in Pranz Gardens-one
of the industries to be serviced by the port.
"I believe any industries planned should
be confined to the large remaining areas in Point
Lisas Industrial Estate," he said. "I
believe that any port facilities could be provided
with expansion of the existing ports there."
'Like fishermen come like nobody'
Fishermen of Claxton Bay find it ironic that the
possibility of their extinction should surface
during the Lenten season-when the demand for
fish is at its annual high.
"Like fishermen come like nobody," fumed
Kishore Boodram, head of the Trinidad and Tobago
Unified Fisherfolk, an association formed to deal
with the threat. "The Government always talking
about helping fishing and now they want to pull
down our livelihood. We are confused. This is one
of the last seabeds left, one of the last shrimping
grounds. Why you want to destroy what God give
you?
"People
maybe don't know, but we supply King's Wharf
in San Fernando and the Port of Spain Depot.
Every year we bring in 200,000 to 300,000 pounds
of fish. It will affect everybody when they have
to pay more for fish."
Claxton Bay is more than fish and shrimp. It is
also a breeding ground for mook, a dark-shelled
clam considered to be a delicacy. The mangroves
are encrusted with oysters and teeming with crabs,
crayfish and conch. It's also a habitat to range
of wildlife common to those conditions-protected
species of snakes and birds, including a few Scarlet
Ibis, the national bird.
For 18-year-old Premchand Goomansingh, a third-generation
fisherman, the prospect of an alternative career
is painful.
Goomansingh is horrified not only at the thought
of not being self-employed, but also at the possibility
of having to work in a steel mill or even on the
proposed port.
"I feel so discouraged," said the young
man, who first ventured out to sea at 13. "What
I want to do is fish."
His
father, Frank Goomansingh, was also raised on "fishing money".
"My father, Wilfred, mind ten children with
fishing," the 51-year-old fisherman recalled.
"He
send all of them to school, give all of them
big weddings and set up all of them for
life. This is an honourable profession that people
will always need. I fishing since I was a boy.
Why is the Government destroying people life like
this? We accustomed to a certain way in life and
you want to take that away and tell them what to
do? You will kill people before they time."
They are not appeased by the NEC's promise to
recreate an even bigger habitat than that which
currently exists.
"That not going to happen, lehwe face it," said
Boodram. "Once they wipe out this area, it
gone."
Story
by Kim Boodram from The Trinidad Express
The
Trinidad Express
Sunday, March 2nd 2008
Copyright© 2008
respective author or news agency. All rights
reserved.
We welcome the use of Petroleumworld™ stories
by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com
as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization
by its authors.
