Page sponsored by Texaco Caribbean Limited
Publication: Daily Nation
Paper Section And Page: 21A
Paper Date: Wed, Oct 31, 2001
Byline: Compiled by Terry Ally
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Page sponsored by Texaco Caribbean Limited |
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THERE'S been another indentation into illegal dumping in Barbados.
A year ago, the public and private sector teamed up to clean up some of the most polluted gullies to the north of the island which were causing environmental health problems. One year later when the Nation toured the five gullies again, they all remain clean and free of garbage and the vegetation cover has returned.
"This is a big success story," environmental health officer Curtis Thompson from the Maurice Byer Polyclinic who coordinated the clean-ups last year. The gullies which were cleaned were Sailor Gully, Baker's Gully, Russia Gully, Airy Hill, and St Ann's Bottom. Sailor Gully was the most polluted with an estimated one million pounds of garbage being removed. Upstream of the garbage site, the Ministry of Public Works created a dam and a retention wall and sunk two suck wells on the gully floor to retard the flow of water towards the coast. Thompson said that Bragg's Hill remains a major problem area which still needs to be cleaned but the terrain was so steep that getting equipment in there would do more harm than good. The second area is Four Hill Gully which worries Thompson.
"This gully connects to The Whim and eventually all these refrigerators, stoves, mattresses, plastic bags and general garbage will wash straight into the sea off Speightstown, it is just a matter of time if we do not clean this area," he said.
The idea of checking gullies arose because of mosquito and rodent infestation of residences in The Rock and The Whim in St Peter. Environmental health officers could find no evidence of mosquito breeding on or around these areas so they decided to check the gullies upstream and they struck gold - or rather, garbage - tonnes of garbage everywhere filled with pockets of water and mosquito larvae.
"Since the clean-up we have not had any major complaints of mosquito or rodent infestation from either The Rock or The Whim," Thompson said.
The success of the clean-up adds to similar
reports from the Sanitation Service Authority which too had been cleaning up
several illegal dumpsites over the last year and they have remained clean.
Thompson and the SSA says the formula for success was to get the communities
involved and educate them on the danger of illegal dumping and impact on
their own health and then it makes the world of difference.
New equipment to monitor quakes
A NEW seismograph was established in Road
Town, Tortola, last week to monitor a swarm of earthquakes which started
around the middle of the month. The Seismic Research Unit in Trinidad said
the machine was established last Friday and between Friday and Monday there
were seven earthquakes just north of the Virgin Islands with the strongest
being 4.3 on the Richter Scale. Last week the unit said there were concerns
that the swarm was occurring near the same location of an 1867 quake that
generated a large tsunami which caused loss of life in the British Virgin
Islands and strong quakes could trigger another tsunami. However, the
magnitude of these last seven earthquakes indicate they were aftershocks of
a main quake measuring 6.0 on October 17, according to the unit. Further
information can be had at www.uwiseismic.com.
WORLDWIDE there is now less than one acre of arable land per head of population. In Barbados there is less than 0.25 acres to grow food for each person. What does this mean in terms of what we should be growing and eating and how we should be cooking it? The topic will be discussed by a panel of experts moderated by Senator Keith Laurie tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at Treading Lightly, Edgehill, St Thomas. Please call 425-0073 for more information.