St. Maarten Private Eye

There are two pictures of the Cay Bay beach that should be looked at closely.
One picture is pre-clearing of some of the rocks and the second is post clearing of some of the rocks.
First of all the rocks on the beach are a result of erosion of the cilff face during hurricane Luis and subsequent hurricanes. The soil got washed away leaving the rocks.
It was suggested to the Cay Bay developers and is now proven that removal of the layer of rocks from the beach will encourage sand to redeposit on the beach naturally.
The natural beach isn't enough, they want more, hence the plans to pump sand to create a beach that encompasses the entire bayfront.
This will be the down fall of this project as astronomical costs of groin construction and dredging will prove to be to much of a burden. Then there is the risk of a total loss due to the next inevitable hurricane.

These pictures do however give us a very strong position to not allow dredging permits for the Barbaron project that need to but have not yet been applied for. If they really want to help the beach then all that needs to be done is to scrape off the top layer of rocks and watch the sand come back.