Proposed quarry on San Pedro may have environmental concerns
Ambergris Caye is the most popular tourist destination and it is experiencing a construction boom despite a drop in visitors’ arrivals. Mega projects such as the controversial South Beach need an enormous quantity of gravel and limestone, which are being barged in at a high cost from the mainland. So there are now plans for a proposed quarry close to the Bacalar Chico Reserve. But could this turn out to be an environmental nightmare? Jose Sanchez headed to the island to find out.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
Behind the idyllic beachfront property of Sueno Del Mar, North Island Development Company Limited has decided to establish a quarry from which tons of limestone would be trucked to San Pedro, at a fraction of the current cost.
Fidel Ancona, Manager, North Island Development Company Ltd.
”We have a lease for fifty acres of land. And we are going to extract rock, limestone to create gravel for the future development of the north end. We feel that this is important because presently all the gravel is brought in from Belize City through the inner reef. And I think it’s hurting the inner reef the coral along the way when it comes in here. Having the quarry here is practical, it’s going to help facilitate the development of the area in the future and I think it will help protect the environment because we are doing it right here.”
Jose Sanchez
“When it comes to cost, what will be the cost benefit of getting the material from Belize City?”
Fidel Ancona
”Well, right now it costs us about a hundred and forty five dollars per cubic yard to bring materials from Belize City. We can sell this gravel here for less than a hundred dollars per cubic yard. You have to drill; you take a rock drill and you take depth that you want to go ahead and excavate. Once you have drilled the number of holes that you need, then you put the explosives in there and you go ahead and explode it. That breaks the rock. So you come with an excavator and you excavate the rock that’s already been broken and you take that rock and put it into the crusher to go ahead and crush it into smaller pieces.”
Fidel Ancona is manager of the project, located eleven miles north of San Pedro Town. He says using explosives to shatter the limestone is a very safe method.
Fidel Ancona
“It is safe. We’ve done it here before when I was working for the Nova hatchery. We had an expert. We have to have an expert with a license to do it. These people come over here and they do it safely. It was done here many times and no damage was done.”
The large rocks are as good as money waiting to be picked off the ground. But the site is located near Bacalar Chico, which has twelve thousand acres of terrestrial reserve. One local N.G.O. says there may be environmental issues ahead.
Mito Paz, Executive Director, Green Reef
“One of the issues that might come up is that of the cenotes. Since they are going to be using dynamite to blow up the bedrock. That might have an impact on some of the underwater cave systems in that are.”
Jose Sanchez
“What is the purpose or the priority regarding of the cave systems?”
Mito Paz
“Well some of the cave systems we know are connected to the sea because they have tidal fluctuations. They are salt water. Some of them are fresh water that are very important for wildlife, especially for mammals and other wildlife living in that area to use those cenotes as a drinking source.”
Fidel Ancona
“We know where the cenotes are. We know that the closest cenote is maybe three thousand feet south of us. The other one is west, maybe about half a mile. Most of the cenotes are more in the area where the airstrip used to be. We don’t know. There probably is a connection from here but what we did here, we never found any connection with any caves and our new project is right next to this one on the other side of this lagoon. So we expect it to be similar to what we have over here.”
Mito Paz
“There is not a lot of studies done in that area especially in the cave systems. Nobody really knows the network of all the cave systems. So its hard to say what impact that is going to have, you know, that the actual dredging and the actual taking of the limestone; to the cave systems of that area so that’s going to be a concern. But more studies need to be done and probably an the EIA will have to be prepared for that.“
The idea of building a quarry is not new to San Pedro. For four years there was an operational quarry, which was built by Nova Shrimp Farm. Nova, as you can see, is out of business and is now a ghost town. But Ancona intends to bring life back into the area by building his quarry next to the one that was built by Nova.
Fidel Ancona
“It’s going to be adjacent to it. It’s just going to be a straight forty feet wide.
Nova was here since 2000. I worked with them seven years. They went bankrupt about two and a half years ago. Roads north to south has already been agreed by a number of people that have been here. That has to happen because without that road, development is not going to occur as it’s supposed to occur.”
Assuming he gets the necessary permits from Geology Department, Ancona’s company will have to get approval from Ministry of National Security for using explosives. And then he will also need the Ministry of Works to build the road of success from the north end to San Pedro Town. Reporting for News Five, Jose Sanchez.
The papers have not yet been filed with the Geology Department but sources say that the project is dangerously close to the Bacalar Chico National Park.
