Waterloo Writes to N.G.O. Senator, “Your Silence is Deafening.”

Portico Enterprises Limited intends to dredge eight and half million cubic meters of material from the seabed in order to build a peninsula at the proposed site for the Port of Magical Belize and the environmental community has remained eerily quiet on the matter.  It’s a stark difference to the public concerns that were raised when the Port of Belize Limited proposed to unearth seven point five million cubic meters for its expansion project in Port Loyola.  That radio silence from the N.G.O. community has prompted Stewart Howard, Chief Executive Officer for Waterloo Holdings Limited to write to Senator Janelle Chanona.  In a letter that was sent to the Vice President of Oceana Belize earlier today, Howard brings attention to the fact that there has been no public response to the issue being raised in respect of Portico’s intent to dredge a significant amount of material in that area of Belize District.  Howard goes on to say, “a review of the timeline of the Portico Project shows unfair treatment and reaction that was meted out by the environmental conservation community to Waterloo when compared to Portico, especially when one considers the scale of the environmental impact that Portico’s Port of Magical Belize presents…  Disturbingly, Portico’s dredging, artificial peninsula and docking facilities for oasis class cruise ships will be situated only eight miles from the Southern Lagoon Manatee Reserve and its outlet, the Manatee River.  Is this not of concern to the conservation community”.  The C.E.O. of Waterloo proceeds to identify what appears to be a double standard and then compares the sequence of events leading up to the signing of Portico’s Definitive Agreement which was executed four months after Portico held its only public consultation for the project.