The Discovery Bay Community Development Committee (D/Bay CDC) is calling on the National Environment Protection Agency (NEPA), to ensure sewage works at Puerto Seco Beach, St Ann, do not damage the beach and its environs.
The Discovery Bay advocacy group said it was making the call in the context of what it understood to be the need for major work on the sewage facilities at the beach that was leased last year to the Kenny Benjamin-lead Guardsman Group.
Major work on the grounds of the facility has begun, with the aim of converting it into a theme park with attractions. The beach has been closed since last year.
In a letter to NEPA’s manager of Pollution Prevention & Control Branch, Kerrine Senior, the Discovery Bay CDC said it wanted assurance that the beach would be enviromentally safe.
The letter, copied to the North Coast Times said the D/Bay CDC was concerned “based on the disaster that has happened to Pear Tree Bottom beach area since the building of Bahia Principe Hotel.”
The letter said Pear Tree Bottom was once a “delightful area where people enjoyed the sea and spectacular sunsets, where wildlife thrived is now so noxious, the smell so foul!” President of the D/Bay CDC Lee Arbouin says they recall meeting with NEPA and other environmental stake holders over Pear Tree Bottom and were assured that the development of a sewage system there would not negatively affect the area. However, she said, the area has been negatively affected by the sewage infrastructure.
The letter said the CDC welcomed tourism and development but these did not have to come with negative effects on the environment. “Please help to ensure that Discovery Bay beach areas remain aesthetically pleasant for residents and tourists today and also for future generations.”
It asked for a response from Dr Senior before the next CDC meeting on September 8.
