EMA defends issuance of CEC for Rocky Point project

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) has in­sist­ed that it fol­lowed “an ex­ten­sive, sci­ence-dri­ven re­view process” be­fore it grant­ed a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) to Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Lim­it­ed for the con­struc­tion of a 3.5-star ho­tel and re­sort at Rocky Point, To­ba­go.

The de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes a 200-room ho­tel, vil­las and town­hous­es, has alarmed en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists, who ar­gue the area is not be­ing treat­ed with the sen­si­tiv­i­ty it de­serves.

Du­ane Ken­ny, founder of the Rocky Point Foun­da­tion, says the project is too mas­sive for such a green-friend­ly space. He is al­so con­cerned about the im­pact on the ocean and the reef, which is mere me­tres from the coast­line.

How­ev­er, in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the EMA de­fend­ed its is­suance of the CEC for the $500 mil­lion project.

It said, “The CEC ap­pli­ca­tion was sub­ject to de­tailed tech­ni­cal analy­sis, in­ter-agency con­sul­ta­tion, stake­hold­er sub­mis­sions, and a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary re­view process which ex­am­ined, in­ter alia, hy­drol­o­gy, ma­rine ecol­o­gy, drainage, waste­water man­age­ment, coastal process­es, light­ing, ar­chae­ol­o­gy, cli­mate re­silience, and so­cio-eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tions.”

The EMA said it went be­yond the com­mit­ments made in the En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment (EIA) re­port and in­cor­po­rat­ed tech­ni­cal rec­om­men­da­tions from a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary re­view com­mit­tee com­pris­ing var­i­ous agen­cies and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

It said this helped to strength­en the mit­i­ga­tion and mon­i­tor­ing mea­sures and the over­all con­di­tions of the CEC.

The EMA not­ed that the EIA re­port had pro­posed a buffer of 3.5 me­tres from the coast­line in cer­tain ar­eas, but this was ex­tend­ed to a 30-me­tre coastal set­back, in keep­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards, with an ad­di­tion­al buffer and veg­e­ta­tion pro­tec­tion re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing main­tain­ing the ex­ist­ing veg­e­ta­tion along the face of the coast­line.

The EMA said it as­sessed con­cerns re­lat­ing to wa­ter car­ry­ing soil, sed­i­ment and pol­lu­tion from land in­to wa­ter­ways and coastal ar­eas, which can cloud the wa­ter and im­pact ma­rine life near the shore. It said the ap­proved de­sign in­cor­po­rates a re­ten­tion pond and stormwa­ter man­age­ment sys­tem de­signed to col­lect rain­wa­ter runoff and man­age how it is re­leased in­to the en­vi­ron­ment.

“The is­sued CEC fur­ther es­tab­lish­es legal­ly en­force­able con­di­tions re­quir­ing ero­sion and sed­i­ment con­trols, phased clear­ing, rain­fall in­spec­tions, runoff at­ten­u­a­tion mea­sures, and ma­rine wa­ter qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing through­out the con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion phas­es,” it said.

On the is­sue of pro­tect­ing the reef, the EMA said con­di­tion 3.10 of the CEC pro­hibits the dis­charge of un­treat­ed or con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ef­flu­ent, main­tain­ing set­backs from the high-wa­ter mark, man­ag­ing earth­works dur­ing rain­fall events, and en­sur­ing all waste­water is prop­er­ly col­lect­ed, treat­ed and dis­posed of through ap­proved sys­tems. The EMA said these mea­sures will ad­dress any po­ten­tial im­pact due to runoff.

The au­thor­i­ty al­so said the CEC in­cludes oblig­a­tions re­quir­ing tur­tle-friend­ly light­ing, re­stric­tions on con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties dur­ing nest­ing pe­ri­ods, beach ac­tiv­i­ty con­trols, mon­i­tor­ing pro­grammes and adap­tive man­age­ment mea­sures through­out the life of the project.

The Rocky Point Foun­da­tion al­so ex­pressed con­cern that in the EIA on nearshore wa­ter qual­i­ty, to­tal sus­pend­ed solids ex­ceed­ed EMA am­bi­ent stan­dards dur­ing the dry sea­son. But the EMA said these am­bi­ent con­di­tions formed part of its as­sess­ment and sub­se­quent­ly in­formed the mon­i­tor­ing and mit­i­ga­tion re­quire­ments in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the CEC.

How­ev­er, the EMA said the CEC is the first step in the reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight and will be fol­lowed by com­pli­ance mon­i­tor­ing and re­port­ing, in­clud­ing quar­ter­ly ma­rine wa­ter qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing, sed­i­ment qual­i­ty as­sess­ments, en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment plans, in­spec­tions, and re­port­ing re­quire­ments to en­sure mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures re­main ef­fec­tive dur­ing both con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion.

The EMA said it re­tains the au­thor­i­ty to take ac­tion for non-com­pli­ance with the CEC, adding it re­mains com­mit­ted to trans­par­ent, sci­ence-based and ac­count­able en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion align­ing with the man­date for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

How­ev­er, the EMA said it re­mains open to con­struc­tive en­gage­ment from stake­hold­ers re­gard­ing the de­vel­op­ment and the con­di­tions and mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures with­in the CEC.