Red flag over EMA clearance for $500M Rocky Point development

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A red flag is now be­ing raised af­ter Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Ltd was giv­en the green light by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) to build a 200-room ho­tel, com­plete with bun­ga­lows, vil­las, and pri­vate res­i­dences, in To­ba­go.

The sprawl­ing de­vel­op­ment, com­pris­ing 11.99 hectares, is ex­pect­ed to cost $500 mil­lion.

De­vel­op­ers an­tic­i­pate hun­dreds of jobs in the con­struc­tion phase and a 3.5-star re­sort that would en­hance the tourism prod­uct on the is­land.

How­ev­er, Rocky Point Foun­da­tion founder Du­ane Ken­ny said he is dis­ap­point­ed that a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) was grant­ed.

The foun­da­tion has been protest­ing cer­tain spe­cif­ic as­pects of the de­vel­op­ment for the last four years, to pro­tect what it de­scribes as an ex­treme­ly sen­si­tive en­vi­ron­ment.

In a me­dia re­lease on May 1, the EMA said its new board was com­mit­ted to a more col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach with stake­hold­ers and was keen on “im­prov­ing the ease of do­ing busi­ness while up­hold­ing rig­or­ous en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards.”

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, Ken­ny ar­gued the EMA stan­dards are not strin­gent enough to pro­tect an al­ready frag­ile reef.

Ken­ny said, “Our con­cern is that what they have done in their en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact as­sess­ment (EIA) is not at the lev­el we would have hoped. Al­though it did take a year, we feel that what they are go­ing to do to al­le­vi­ate those is­sues are not re­al­ly good enough.”

He be­lieves the 30m buffer, as the CEC out­lines, be­tween the coast­line and the de­vel­op­ment works is in­ad­e­quate.

“It is a much more sen­si­tive area be­cause of the reef lit­er­al­ly be­ing mere feet from the shore­line.

“We have to look at the steps, what can be done to ei­ther try and tell the de­vel­op­er you need to do these things to al­le­vi­ate these is­sues, oth­er­wise we wor­ry the im­pact on the reef is gonna be sig­nif­i­cant along with the coast­line.”

He ar­gued that the nat­ur­al runoff from the de­vel­op­ment would bring fer­tilis­er, pool wa­ter with chlo­rine and oth­er un­nat­ur­al chem­i­cals to the reef.

“A lot of these de­vel­op­ments, the pool wa­ter goes on­to the nat­ur­al drains and will end up in the sea. All that chlo­rine is very dan­ger­ous to coral. That is a con­cern.”

In the EIA, the tests on seafloor sed­i­ments showed “to­tal oil and grease and to­tal pe­tro­le­um hy­dro­car­bons ex­ceed­ing in­ter­na­tion­al guide­lines in some in­stances.”

The tests on nearshore wa­ter qual­i­ty al­so showed to­tal sus­pend­ed solids ex­ceed­ed EMA am­bi­ent stan­dards dur­ing the dry sea­son.

Ken­ny added, “We al­ready had high lev­els of tox­ins in the wa­ter just from Mt Irvine al­ready, so if we add this on top of what al­ready ex­ists, then you gonna have an even greater im­pact.”

He urged the de­vel­op­ers to treat the Rocky Point as an eco-tourism hub and not sim­ply a re­sort.

He said the area is a very ac­tive tur­tle-nest­ing site with 60 per cent of the leatherback tur­tles choos­ing that site to lay their eggs.

In ad­di­tion, he said it is a very pop­u­lar lo­ca­tion for divers and surfers.

“What makes that area unique, the most pop­u­lar scu­ba div­ing spot is that wall off Back Bay/Mt Irvine. Then you have the Mav­er­ick, which is a wreck off­shore that they dive on. You have one of the best be­gin­ner snorkelling reefs on that side, wrap­ping around to­wards Grange Bay.”

He added, “All of those things we wor­ry if there is a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact to coral that could have a neg­a­tive ef­fect on the tourism of the area. All of these could be ben­e­fits to the de­vel­op­er if pushed in the cor­rect way be­cause you’re on site for all those amaz­ing things.”

Ken­ny, who holds a de­gree in hos­pi­tal­i­ty man­age­ment, has worked at Dis­ney in Or­lan­do, Blue Wa­ters Inn and Stone Haven Vil­las.

He said the foun­da­tion was not against the de­vel­op­ment.

“That lo­ca­tion is one of the gems of To­ba­go, and we be­lieve the type of de­vel­op­ment should be a very eco, green-fo­cused type with low im­pact, max­i­mum green space, min­i­mum con­struc­tion space. We un­der­stand it is a busi­ness thing, you have to make mon­ey, but we find that is way too much con­crete for that site.

“It is an amaz­ing green space!”

Asked to re­spond to the is­sues raised, Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels chair­man John Aboud said: “Any fur­ther ques­tions and con­cerns should be di­rect­ed to the EMA.”

He said the de­vel­op­ers have spent three years do­ing ex­ten­sive stud­ies and hold­ing mul­ti­ple pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions.

“There should be no unan­swered con­cerns,” he said.

He said To­bag­o­ni­ans stand to ben­e­fit con­sid­er­ably as “this project is a game chang­er.”

He added, “We are very ex­cit­ed to ex­e­cute and de­liv­er what was com­mit­ted to. There should be no unan­swered rea­son­able con­cerns by any­one who has the in­ter­est of To­ba­go first.”

Mean­while, Rocky Point res­i­dent Ed­mund Lecointe, 85, said he does not be­lieve To­bag­o­ni­ans would ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the project.

“Right now, we can’t get peo­ple to work in To­ba­go. If you want a car­pen­ter, a ma­son or an elec­tri­cian, you can’t get peo­ple. They still have to bring in peo­ple from Trinidad, from out­side. Lo­cal busi­ness is suf­fer­ing here,” he said.

He claimed the Cepep pro­gramme in To­ba­go is con­trol­ling the ma­jor­i­ty of labour.

Lecointe said the in­fra­struc­ture in the com­mu­ni­ty needs to im­prove, as it is un­safe for pedes­tri­ans.

“From Grange com­ing up all the way to Pleas­ant Prospect, you don’t have a side­walk.

“I’ve seen vis­i­tors come here and they fright­ened as hell be­cause peo­ple dri­ving very reck­less here,” he said.

He said he has had to curb his morn­ing walks be­cause it has be­come too dan­ger­ous.

“There is no pave­ment to walk, it is all grass,” he said.

He said this should be pri­ori­tised be­fore a ho­tel is built.

What the CEC says

The CEC ad­dress­es some of the con­cerns raised by the foun­da­tion, set­ting a 30m dis­tance be­tween de­vel­op­ment works and the high-wa­ter line to pre­vent en­croach­ment of the beach. All ma­jor con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ties which may di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly af­fect coastal ar­eas must be done out­side of the tur­tle-nest­ing and hatch­ing sea­sons. It al­so men­tions that light­ing must be shield­ed from the coast­line dur­ing con­struc­tion and be of low in­ten­si­ty/tur­tle-friend­ly spec­trum.

Un­der the pro­tec­tion of the coral, the CEC notes that the hold­er must en­sure no un­treat­ed or con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed ef­flu­ent is al­lowed to en­ter the nearshore ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment. Ma­jor earth­works, as far as prac­ti­cal, must be sched­uled in pe­ri­ods of min­i­mal rain­fall to pre­vent runoff. It al­so calls for earth­works to be halt­ed dur­ing in­tense rain­fall.

The stock­pil­ing of ex­ca­vat­ed ma­te­r­i­al, an area des­ig­nat­ed for re­fu­elling and stor­age of haz­ardous ma­te­r­i­al, must al­so be at least 30m from the high-wa­ter line.