St. Maarten Private Eye

Dredger spotted destroying Simpson Bay Lagoon

EPIC and SXM Pride Press release

On Tuesday August 26th, 2008 St. Maarten Pride Foundation and EPIC received word that a Dredger was seen removing large quantities of sand from the Simpson Bay Lagoon and depositing it on the Island of Little Key.

Foundation volunteers arrived at Little Key to investigate the reports and took several pictures of the dredger in action before its Captain ceased operations, boarded another vessel and hurried it back to its home port in an attempt to avoid further inquires by aforementioned volunteers. The Foundations have learnt that the dredger was in the process of digging a deep channel to a Marina located behind the Airport parking lot.

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Development and Construction | Environment | Epic Foundation | Mullet Bay | Simpson Bay Lagoon | SXM Pride Foundation | Flipper's blog | 32 comments | read more

Marine Ordinance, Zoning and Water Testing

The SXM Nature Foundation was started 11 years ago and one of their primary missions was to establish a protected marine park. Statia Marine Park was also started in 1997 and late last year their Marine Park celebrated it's 10 year anniversary, while SXM awaits the Exco. And waits, and waits...

The marine park ordinance and many other environmental legislation has always been put to the back burner of government. There is also no zoning, back in 1976 the Fed Govt. told every island to start with zoning plans, SXM never started and we are where we are today. The only land that has zoning is Fort Amsterdam, a last minute effort to halt the owners from further developing their land which they bought from the Claude Wathey government. Which shows it can be done, regardless if the land is privately owned. (Like EWE.)

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Development and Construction | Emilio Wilson Estate | Environment | Epic Foundation | Island Politics | Simpson Bay Lagoon | Local Hero's blog | 1 comment | read more

Two new Enviro Videos

Two new videos from SXM have been placed on YouTube recently. The first is an awareness video created by a student which I have given the title "Don't care what people say, follow your own way". The second is a SXM Pride report about mangroves being cleared in the lagoon behind Tropicana Casino.

You can read more about SXM Pride here.

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Development and Construction | Epic Foundation | SXM Pride Foundation | Flipper's blog | 8 comments | read more

The Environment

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Climate Change | Development and Construction | Environment | Epic Foundation | Simpson Bay Lagoon | SXM Pride Foundation | read more