final report - public consultation new harbour village · 9 town cryer on the afternoon of the...

Report

Prepared by:

ESL MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS LTD. 20 West Kings House Road Kingston 10

PPUUBBLLIICC PPRREESSEENNTTAATTIIOONN OOFF TTHHEE EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTTAALL IIMMPPAACCTT AASSSSEESSSSMMEENNTT

FFOORR TTHHEE NNEEWW HHAARRBBOOUURR VVIILLLLAAGGEE HHOOUUSSIINNGG

October 2006

Environmental Solutions Ltd.

Submitted to: Gore Developments Ltd. 2c Braemar Avenue, Kingston 10

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................................1 2.0 NEPA Requirements..........................................................................................................................................3 3.0 Public Notification.............................................................................................................................................3 4.0 Chairman and Agenda ......................................................................................................................................14 5.0 Attendance ........................................................................................................................................................16 6.0 Presentation .....................................................................................................................................................23 7.0 Verbatim Report ...............................................................................................................................................47

1

1.0 Introduction New Harbour Village is a subdivision being proposed by Gore Developments Ltd. south

of Old Harbour and in close proximity to the Old Harbour exit from Highway 2000

(Figure 1.0). It is bordered by the Old Harbour Bay Main Road on the west, Brampton

Farms to the south, and an existing subdivision called Belmont Park to the north. The

subdivision will contain 845 two bedroom houses on a minimum of 3,500 sq. ft. lots.

Commercial lots will be provided encircling the central open space and will occupy 14 of

the lots. Commercial activities that will be permitted will include small retail businesses.

A large lot (1/2 acre) will be provided for the establishment of a private basic school. The

main entrance will be from the existing Old Harbour Bay Main Road. The main entrance

will be a boulevard of 18 m width, with neighbourhoods on either side or a large

recreational area at the end of the boulevard.

The total land area to be developed is 52.44 ha, with 7.38 ha set aside as active open

spaces which can be used as recreational areas, parks or playing fields. Passive open

spaces will comprise 3.18 ha., giving a total of 10.57 ha of open space.

Gore Developments Ltd. applied to the National Environment and Planning Agency

(NEPA) for a permit for the development. NEPA requested that an Environmental

Impact Assessment (EIA) be prepared and submitted to the agency, and NEPA also

request that a Public Consultation be held. The Public Consultation was held on

Thursday October 12, 2006, and is the subject of this report.

Public Presentation Report Environmental Solutions Ltd.

New Harbour Vilage Gore Developments Ltd. 2

Figure 1.0 a: Site Location Map for the New Harbour Village



2.0 NEPA Requirements The Public Consultation was staged in accordance with the NEPA Guidelines for Public

Consultations, and with constant communication with NEPA representatives, regarding

the selection of a Chairman, list of invitees and notification.

3.0 Public Notification Public notification was given through the following means:

Public Notification #2 in The Friday Gleaner (September 22, 2006) (Figure 3.0a and b)

The Daily Gleaner (Thursday, October 12, 2006) (Figure 3.0c) Flyers (Figure 3.0d) Personalized Invitations (Figure 3.0e and Figure 3.0f) Town Cryer on the afternoon of the event

Additionally, NEPA was requested to post the information on their website.



Public Notice (#2)

Notice of Completion and Submission of Environmental Impact Assessment Report and staging of Public Presentation

Public Comment Invited

New Harbour Village, Old Harbour, St. Catherine

In accordance with the Natural Resources Conservation (Permits and Licenses) Regulations of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) Act 1991, the NRCA has exercised its right to require an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the above-captioned development proposal before a decision to issue a Permit or License is made.

This housing development is proposed by Gore Developments Ltd., on 52.44 ha of land located at New Market Pen in St. Catherine, as shown in the map below. It is bordered by the Old Harbour Bay Main Road on the west, Brampton Farms to the south, and an existing subdivision called Belmont Park to the north as shown in the map below. The development will comprise a housing development with 845 two-bedroom houses on a minimum of 3,500 sq. ft. lots, a sewage treatment plant, recreational areas, a small commercial centre and a basic school.

Gore Developments Ltd. has retained Environmental Solutions Ltd. to assist them with conducting the EIA study. A final EIA report of this proposed development has now been completed. A review of this study will be the basis upon which a decision is made by the NRCA to grant a permit and/or license for the development or not. Accordingly, the EIA report needs to be reviewed by the relevant government review agencies and interested members of the public. The report is available for public inspection at the following locations:

• St. Catherine Parish Library, 1 Red Church Street, St. Catherine, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Mondays to Fridays and 10:00 a.m. to 5 :00 p.m. Saturdays

• St. Catherine Parish Council, Emancipation Square, Spanish Town 9:00a.m. to 4:00p.m., Mondays to Fridays

• Gore Developments Ltd., 2c Braemar Avenue, Kingston 5, 9:00a.m. to 4:00p.m., Mondays to Fridays

• Environmental Solutions Ltd., 20 West Kings House Road, Kingston 10, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Mondays to Fridays

• NEPA Documentation Centre, 11 Caledonia Ave., Kingston 5, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Mondays to Fridays.

• The NEPA Web Site at www.nepa.gov.jm If you wish to comment on the EIA report, please do so within 3 weeks of the publication of this notice and address comments to:

Manager, Applications Secretariat Branch National Environment and Planning Agency, 10 Caledonia Ave., Kingston 5 Tel: (816) 754-7540; e-mail: [email protected]

Figure 3.0a: Public Notification #2 for The Friday Gleaner



PUBLIC PRESENTATION

VENUE: Old Harbour High School 33 South Street Old Harbour

DATE: Thursday, October 12th, 2006 TIME: 6:00 p.m. - 8:00pm The public is invited to participate in the presentation by way of asking questions relating to the

proposed project.

Site Location Map of Proposed Development Site

Date of Notice: September 21, 2006 Date of Newspaper Advert: September 22, 2006



Figure 3.0b: Public Notification #2 in The Friday Gleaner



Figure 3.0 c: Advertisement in The Daily Gleaner



Table 3.0 d: List of Invitees with Sample Invitation Letter

Figure 3.0d: Flyer

NOTIFICATION OF PUBLIC PRESENTATION

There will be a Public Presentation of the Environment Impact Assessment OF: NEW HARBOUR VILLAGE,

OLD HARBOUR, ST. CATHERINE VENUE: Old Harbour High School

33 South Street Old Harbour DATE: Thursday, October 12th, 2006 TIME: 6:00 p.m - 8:00pm The public is invited to participate in the presentation by way of asking questions relating to the proposed project. A copy of the environmental impact assessment report may be consulted at:

St. Catherine Parish Library, 1 Red Church Street, Spanish Town St. Catherine Parish Council Office, Emancipation Square National Environment and Planning Agency, 10 Caledonia Avenue, Kingston 5

www.nepa.gov.jm For further information please contact:

The Offices of the National Environment & Planning Agency (NEPA)

10 Caledonia Avenue, Kingston 5 or their website: www.nepa.gov.jm



Table 3.0e: Sample Letter of Invitation



Figure 3.0f: Invitation List



4.0 Chairman and Agenda The Board of the Old Harbour High School was approached to Chair the Meeting. Dr.

Errol O’Conner, Chairman of the Board agreed to Chair the event. The agenda is given

in Figure 4.0.

Figure 4.0: Agenda for the Meeting



5.0 Attendance Over one hundred (100) persons were in attendance, and over seventy-five (75) persons

signed the guest book. The signed guest book is given as Table 5.0.

Table 5.0: Guest Book for New Harbour Village Public Presentation



6.0 Presentation

Environmental Solutions Ltd. prepared and presented the findings of the EIA, in

conjunction with other members of the project team. The Power Point Presentation is

given in Figure 6.0.



Figure 6.0: Power Point Presentation



7.0 Verbatim Report The proceedings of the evening were recorded verbatim by a court reporter and are

presented in the text below:



VERBATIM NOTES OF THE PUBLIC PRESENTATION OF THE FINDINGS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF THE NEW HARBOUR VILLAGE HELD AT THE OLD HARBOUR

HIGH SCHOOL ON THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2006 COMMENCING AT 6:15 P.M.

CHAIRMAN: Dr. E. O’Conner - Chairman of the Board of Old

Harbour High School PRESENTER: Dr. M. Williams – Director and Consulting Principal

Manager, Sustainable Development Services Division, Environmental Solutions Ltd.

IN ATTENDANCE FOR THE PROJECT TEAM: Mr. C. Gore Ms. D. Gross Mr. E. Perez Mr. I. Pinchas Ms. T. Rodriguez Mr. G. Campbell Mrs. S. Shirley Mr. B. Richardson Mr. A. Foreman Mr. J. Excell Mr. B. Hay Mr. I. Johnson ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: Invited guests, stakeholders and members of the community



Chairman: Members of the presenting team, members of the Old

Harbour Bay environment, prospective home owners

welcome to you all this evening at our presentation.

Now, before we continue any further, I would ask that

those with loud cell phones, loud ringing tones could

turn them down, silent or vibrate so that we don’t

disrupt the meeting. We must now acknowledge the

presence of our Member of Parliament Mr. Everald

Warmington (Applause) and our councillor for the Old

Harbour division, hard-working councillor. (Applause)

Let me give you some background as to our meeting

here this evening. The Old Harbour area, it is said, is

one of the fastest growing rural communities in

Jamaica, for several reasons, reasons of the socio-

economic conditions in Kingston and also the fact that

with the advent of Highway 2000, it is clearly easier to

commute to Kingston. Now, Gore Developments, and

we have here Mr. Christopher Gore, could you stand

and let us acknowledge you, Sir. (Applause) Chris

Gore of Gore Developments has purchased a

property to the south of us here, it is a property I know

well, it was previously owned by one of our favourite

sons of Old Harbour Mr. Carl March of blessed



Chairman: memory. He had owned the major portion of it, he

had told us about 120 acres, its bordered by the Old

Harbour Bay main road on the western border,

Brampton Farms on the southern border and Sharper

Lane on its northern border. Sharper Lane, Belmont

Park Development and farm lots on the eastern

portion. Now, Mr. Gore has proposed a development

for this property but before he can do so he will need

permit from the Government. Now, I was telling you I

had a little experience with the government process

some eight years ago and at the time I was told there

were about 19 agencies involved in the approval

process. Now, I am thinking that in the last few years

the government has sort of streamlined it or tried their

best to streamline it a bit and they have put all three

of these groups under one umbrella. The NRCA, the

Natural Resources Conservation Authority and the

Town Planning Department and the Land Utilization

and Development they have put these three groups

under one umbrella now called NEPA, so Mr. Gore

has to get some permit from NEPA. Now part of this

evening’s proceeding is in its quest to get these

permits NEPA requires an Environmental Impact



Chairman: Assessment so he has contracted Environmental

Solutions Ltd. of which there is a team of consultants.

The leading one this evening is Dr. Williams, she is

seated at the head table here with me and she has

her team of engineers and so on which she will

introduce later on. Now, this study or the concerns for

this study are quite appropriate because this area has

been traditionally farm lands and Mr. Gore is planning

to bring in, to put in eight hundred and twenty odd

housing solutions and I am told you can average four

persons per house, which means three thousand five

hundred people. I am told we can average about one

to two cars per house so you are looking about eight

hundred to fifteen hundred cars. You put in those on

a hundred and twenty odd acres, it is going to be

stressful for the environment we know, solid waste

disposal, liquid waste disposal, green space, traffic

congestions those sort of problems, the

environmental people are thinking about wild life in

the area and so on. Because the land itself, I am told

falls in a protected area on the south coast. It falls in

the Portland Bight Protected Area so they have a

concern and there are NGO’s non-governmental



Chairman: organizations who have concerns about these things

and they have an input into it as well. So for all

involved, we should have this sort of discussion this

evening. Recently I went to a play in Kingston and its

called “Jamaica to Rahtid”, it is satiric, it is a comedy

of Jamaican life and it brought out the feature of our

culture of block de road and when people block the

road the next thing they say they are not leaving until

the TV cameras come; and the other thing is we want

justice. Now, a lot of times we don’t think about the

cost of this activity. But I remember years ago one

eventful day I went to my office, because I live close

to my office, and while I was there, there were the gas

riots, gas strike people demonstrating about this

sudden increase, sudden large increase in gas price.

Now, about an hour after I opened, a taxi driver came

in, he says, “Doc this lady calls me, she wants to go

to the maternity ward and I cannot go any further”

and I said, “Boy you have to stop at Dr. O’Connor.”

Now, I am a General Practitioner and I have one

office, a small office alone and this lady come and the

baby won’t wait. At that time I had not delivered a

baby in about ten years I had to fall back on



Chairman: experiences and deliver, but it ended well. But in

developed countries you cannot obstruct anyone from

their rights and there is what you call the ”de-pocket”

law that means, if you cause something - suppose

this lady baby had died in a developed country she

would sue everybody and those who can pay would

have to pay but somebody would have to pay. So

there is a cost to this sort of thing. So to prevent these

kinds of occurrence and to prevent the growth of this

culture it is best that we have our decision timely

planned and timely executed. And meeting at a forum

such as this, this evening is for us to - for the

developers to consult with the people and let them

understand what is going to be done and the people

put their input into it so we will have harmony at the

end. So this evening then, we are going to have a

meeting which is very important to the developers as

well because they have to present, keep the record of

it and present it to the government also. So all we do

this evening is going to be recorded. First, we will

have a presentation by Dr. Williams and then the

team from Environmental Solutions. We are doing the

impact, the environmental impact assessment study.



Chairman: After that we will have a question and answer session

and there is microphone in the isle and anyone in the

audience can voice their concerns and will get

answers from the team here this evening. We wish

that you conduct yourselves orderly. We can form a

line behind the mike, and everybody don’t rush at the

same time. And remember it is being recorded so we

want to do it as good as possible. Please do not try to

ask questions when the presentation is on because

this is disturbing, it is distracting. There will be time

for a question and answer session. Without further

ado then, I would like to present you our main

presenter tonight and she will introduce her team Dr.

Margaret Williams. Dr. Williams has her first degree

in Marine Biology and then she did her Doctorate in

Environmental Science, so she is well capable in

presenting this to you and the study on the impact

that this subdivision will have oh just south of us here

this evening. So Dr. Williams. (Applause)

Dr. Williams: Thank you Dr. O’Connor. Good evening everybody,

and welcome. Dr. O’Connor has very kindly agreed

to be my assistant for the presentation. Okay this is



Dr. Williams: the outline of the presentation. Dr. O’Connor said a

little bit about the NEPA process, I am going to say a

little bit more in terms of the permit requirements.

Then we will have a look at the description of the

project, the methodology used during the EIA, the

results that we found in terms of the existing

environment under the physical biological and social

aspects. And then we look at the potential impacts

that this project could have on the environment and

what we call the mitigation measures, how we can

lesson these impacts in order to ensure that the

development does not cause undue harm to the

environment. We will have a look at some

consideration of alternatives for the project which is

also a requirement of NEPA and then the next steps

and what is required, and then we go into a question

and answer session.

I would like to just introduce the team that is here

tonight. The project team has met almost weekly and

includes various members of the professional team

and we have gone out on the site with groups of team

members because we try to have what we call an

interdisciplinary and multi- disciplinary approach to



Dr. Williams: the EIA. The project meetings are lead by Mr. Gore

who was introduced before, beside him Doris Gross

from Portico Limited, the architect and she will say a

little bit more about the house design. Eusebio Perez,

Project Manager and he is the point man out here in

Old Harbour when the project gets on the way. Israel

Pinchas, Project Manager for one of Gore’s Projects

in Montego Bay. Theresa Rodriguez, Project Officer

and our GIS expert with Environment Solutions

Limited. Sandra Clemmings is our Court Reporter,

she is recording everything as Dr. O’Connor said. We

have to prepare a report and she usually works with

us on these EIA consultations. Remona Brown at the

back is our Admin. Assistant and responsible for all

the logistics for this evening’s event and she is very

aware of all the aspects of the project as well. Brian

Richardson is our Hydrogeologist and he is with BR

Labs Limited. Beside him Mr. Andrew Foreman, from

Foreman Chung and Sykes Consulting Engineers,

Mr. Jason Excell, another engineer from Appropriate

Technologies Limited. SharonMae Shirley a Director

with Environmental Solutions Limited is our

Environmental Chemist she is not here just yet and



Dr. Williams: Mr. George Campbell, Director and Consulting

Principal also with Environmental Solutions Limited

and responsible for the socio-economic aspects of the

project. Okay, the NEPA process. As Dr. O’Connor

said Mr. Gore had to submit a permit application for

the development, and out of this NEPA requested us

to prepare the Terms of Reference for conducting the

EIA. And the Terms of Reference basically guides

the study to ensure that all the relevant aspects are

covered. NEPA also engages in a scoping exercise

where they have a site visit and also as Dr. O’Connor

says because he is familiar with the process, they

have what they call sister agencies, between 15 and

19 government agencies that sit on a technical review

committee with them and are involved with the

scoping exercise and the determination of the Terms

of Reference. Some of these agencies include

National Works Agency, Water Resources Authority,

ODPEM- the Office of Disaster Preparedness and

Emergency Management, Jamaica National Heritage

Trust and so on. And public consultations. As part of

the EIA we do have a consultation process which I will

speak to a little bit more, but this particular event here



Dr. Williams: is a requirement of NEPA in order to get the permit. I

said we have a multi disciplinary team because the

EIA has to incorporate all aspects of the environment

and we use a method that we call Charette Style

investigations. We go out on the site as a team, we

have team meetings so that team members don’t go

off individually and do their work and then come back

because the environment is quite interactive and so

we have to get the benefit of all the disciplines. We

review existing documentation, reports, maps, plans,

aerial photos, and of course we do field investigations

and analyses and where necessary laboratory

analyses. And as I said public consultations- as well

interviews in the community, targeted interviews with

particular community groups or civic leaders and

stake holders.

The project site - can everybody at the back see the

slides? The project site is in red just south of

Highway 2000 and bordered by Brampton Farms and

Belmont Park. And what is being proposed, 129 acres

of land and Gore Development proposes to put in 845

two-bedroom houses, there will be 14 commercial

lots, a lot will be provided for the establishment of a



Dr. Williams: basic school and approximately 19 acres of open

space, green areas which will be used for recreational

areas and playing fields. A sewage treatment plant

has been designed and this plant will meet the NEPA

effluent discharge standards, the design is being

done by Appropriate Technologies Limited. The

sewage treatment plant will have to have its own

permit and licence for discharge. The system is the

CLR system a closed loop reactor process which will

take out the nitrogen and phosphorous. The sewage

treatment plant will be located to the north of the

property and Doris is going to say little bit more about

the layout and she can show you where that is. A

drainage plan has also been prepared by Foreman,

Chung and Sykes Engineers and of the issues that

we discovered on the property or affecting the

property in terms of an existing drain under the

parochial road there by Belmont Park which has

flooded from time to time. So the drainage plan

actually includes widening this drain to increase the

capacity so that, that will alleviate the flooding

problem and to ensure that there is no flooding on the

site when the houses are in place. The roads and the



Dr. Williams: drain reservations will be graded so that the flow

paths are unobstructed and there will be two green

areas that can serve as detention areas in the event

of extremely excessive rainfall events. Okay, this is

the layout. I am going to ask Doris to come and say

little bit about the layout and about the houses as

well.

Ms. Gross: Thank you Margaret, good evening everyone. I will

keep it brief. The subdivision layout that you see here

on the wall is planned with certain vision behind it

which I would like to describe. I am sure all of you are

familiar with where this piece of land is located. As

you approach it from Old Harbour we will be widening

the road in front of the project so as to alleviate traffic

congestion where it is necessary.

That includes a side walk, a taxi and a bus bay. We

will be creating a main entrance, a wide intersection

main entrance right in the middle of the subdivision, I

hope you can follow with your eyes as I talk. That

entrance into the site is created by a wide boulevard,

a wide main road so that traffic can be kept on that

main spine into development. As you see a circle



Ms. Gross: going into that main road. That circle is a round-about

from which you can veer left or right into a

neighbourhood so no one is required to drive through

residential areas more than necessary and can stay

on the main. These individual neighbourhoods on the

left and right have a park in the middle and can be

used for sporting or recreational walks. As that

boulevard takes us to the very centre of the

subdivision you will see a large square which is a

large park, that park can accommodate a football

field, a community centre and any other recreational

facilities that the community wishes to develop. And

as I speak to the park you will see rather large green

areas throughout the development which we find are

quite nice to have, they can be developed as the

community grows and there is plenty opportunity for

recreation of all sorts. So again left and right of that

central square park is a larger neighbourhood to the

left and a slightly smaller one to the side. Also

encircling the large part in the middle we have

dedicated a few lots to commercial business. We

were required to make sure that somewhere in the

subdivision near to the residence there is a little bit of



Ms. Gross: commercial activity but this is a small type,

commercial corner type situation. The top part of our

plan here shows the layout a little bit separated from

the rest, there is a small bridge that will cross the

drain that Dr. Williams mentioned and that is a

neighbourhood up there by itself. The project will be

constructed in phases. The project starts with a lower

left quarter Phase 1, the lower right quarter is Phase 2

and then we move up to the left of the central park

and that is Phase 3, Phase 4 is across the bridge at

the very top of the plan and then Phase 5 is the left

over little area on the other side of that main park.

The layout shows roads and lots you can identify -

before I get to the lots we have located or identify a

piece of land that is available for a basic school which

is usually appreciated by churches or other private

entities who wish to develop that which will be in the

last phase, Phase 5. The lots are quite regular

shaped rectangular lots. In most cases they are three

thousand five hundred square feet large or larger and

the houses are located on these lots in such a way

that they give ample room for expansion to the rear. I

would say that you could safely say the same size



Ms. Gross: house that you would be getting you could expand to

the back again and add a two storey to the back also

if you wish so. So the land space is quite generous. I

forgot one area of the plan, we have located the

sewage treatment plant without which the

development was not going to happen, into the

furthest corner of the development keeping in mind

that no one wants to live beside one, as well or badly

as they may work, hopefully this one works very well.

We have also surrounded it by a wide buffer of green

space and open area for recreation so that no one

has to live directly adjoining to a sewage treatment

plant. It is also visually quite far away from everyone

so you should not even conceive of or even reminded

that there is a sewage treatment plant. Dr. Williams is

pointing to the drain that sort of cuts the development

in half, that main drain has been created because of

the natural river course that is existing there now,

those of you who live in the adjoining neighbourhood

Belmont or nearby will know that there is a flooding

issue that Dr. Williams already mentioned where the

culvert crosses the road and we have not only

widened the culvert but also widened this river and



Ms. Gross: turned it into a proper drain which perhaps the

engineer later on can explain a little bit further

because drainage is obviously our best concern that

we all do have and subsequent flooding that

sometimes occurs.

I would like to speak on the house itself. The house is

a two bedroom unit it is seven hundred and forty (740)

square feet large, it consists of, as I said, two

bedrooms of which one is a little bit larger than the

other, and a large bathroom. It also has an open

living, kitchen and dining area. A kitchen will be built

in and also the bathroom will be built with all the

fixtures that are required. The house is built out of

reinforced concrete walls using a form system that

has been used for many projects and is very, very

suitable. It has a timber roof, a timber pitched roof as

you can see by the picture. The house also features

double glazed windows which help to keep the heat

out and keep the house a little bit cooler- sliding

windows. We were trying to actually show the plan. I

have put the plans for the house and the subdivision

on the walls so you are welcome to look around and



Ms. Gross: study it a little bit further. It also shows on the walls a

flow of plans that we weren’t able to get into this

presentation unfortunately, so you can see the layout.

Any further questions you may have, you can address

after the presentation. Thank you. (Applause)

Dr. Williams: Thank you Doris. Physical environment. So the area

is known as New Market Pen as I said before located

just off the southern ramp of Highway 2000. Major

drainage network in the area and as you saw an

unnamed gully or drain actually runs through the

property. The main drainage lines includes the

Church Pen Gully, the Stony Gully and Frasers Gully

which you are probably all familiar with. The Church

Pen Gully is actually outside the one kilometer radius.

This map shows the one kilometer radius around the

Newmarket Pen area. The property is fairly flat, there

are higher elevations found towards the north of the

property about sixty-two feet above sea level and then

towards the south it is a little bit lower at twenty eight

feet above sea level but the land is quite flat. The

geology is dominated by the limestone group with



Dr. Williams: coarse gravel, sand and clay over top, the soils have

fairly high salinity which is not unusual for this area

and the ground water is fairly high at about eight to

fifteen feet below ground level.

We had a look at the contributing upper catchment for

the area which is where water will be coming from,

the watershed that feeds into the property, and that is

delineated in red. The proposed site is written in red

and outlined in green and you can see the drainage

network there in blue. So quite an extensive

drainage system within the project area and as I said

one line actually crosses the project. Because of this

of course we have had to look at the storm water

runoff what comes out of the upper catchment and

into the property and the engineers and hydrologists

have done their calculations. Currently what we

called the pre-development runoff- what happens now

is at fifty-one cubic meters per second. Now when a

development goes in and we have paved areas and

we lose the ability of water to percolate then a lot of

water runs off and this is where you could have

potential flooding issues. The calculations have

shown that the post development run off would only



Dr. Williams: be four cubic meters per second higher indicating

about a seven point eight percent increase which is

not considered a significant increase. However, the

engineers, having incorporated this into the design

and that is one of the reasons why the drain is being

widened and the capacity is being increased. Looking

at water for the area, currently the water for the area,

the general area comes from the Succuba Pen and

Bowers Pen water supply systems and the project

has calculated how much water would be required for

the eight hundred and forty five units with an average

of four persons in each household and that comes to

just over two hundred and two thousand cubic meters

per year. Right now water supply is projected to be

obtained from a well that currently exists on the site,

the previous property owners have used this well and

the supply for the well is at two thousand four hundred

cubic meters per day. Now, the developers will have

to get a licence- a Water Abstraction Licence from the

Water Resources Authority in order to get this water

from the well and they will have the projected yield. In

terms of water quality, we tested the water in that

unnamed gully and the water quality is actually quite



Dr. Williams: poor there are faecal coliforms suggesting some

sewage inflows or trade effluent inflows and high

biochemical oxygen demand. There is a lot of storm

water runoff from the Old Harbour area into that drain

as well.

Total suspended solids which is one of the

parameters that we also measured is currently higher

than the trade effluent and sewage standards. And

what I have listed here are some heavy metals-

copper, lead, zinc and manganese they were all

below the national standard. In terms of ground water

quality which is the water from the well which is what

is supposed to be used for potable water supply, the

main parameter of concern is what we called total

dissolved solids and this is because of saline intrusion

which is common to this area as well, so it gives the

water salty taste. The best method for treating this

water to create potable supply is reverse osmosis and

this is what is being currently proposed for the

development. We also looked at air quality and noise

to establish existing baseline conditions. We also

looked at pesticide residues in the soil because the

land had been previously under agricultural use. Five



Dr. Williams: stations were randomly sampled including perimeter

sites and a site close to the well and none of the

samples showed any pesticide residue. On the

biological environment.

The site is a highly disturbed site, we have no natural

habitat zones it was previously in agricultural use.

Two main types of habitats were identified-

abandoned pasture which is dominated by the African

star grass which was used for cattle and secondary

woodland along the banks of the stream dominated

by some large trees such a quango, bastard cedar

and cashew. In terms of birds a fairly limited

population of birds because of the highly degraded

nature of the site. This is a typical shot of the site with

abandoned pasture land and then the secondary

woodland. We had a look at the stream to see if there

were any flora or fauna there because as I said before

high levels of coliform and BOD, very highly polluted,

the water is very dark and cloudy with odours and

there was nothing living in there.

Birds even though the site is so highly disturbed, bird

populations can establish themselves in many areas.

We have a lot of ubiquitous species and seed eaters.



Dr. Williams: Thirty-six species of birds were observed during the

field visits, several waterbird species were observed

because of the proximity of the aqua-culture ponds

and also a micro dam which is a little bit down stream

of that gully. Three endemic species of birds were

also observed, the Jamaican woodpecker, the

Jamaican streamer tail and the Jamaica mango

hummingbird. A few migrant species were observed

but we have to note that the study was done during

the summer. In the winter months there are likely to

be more migrant species that would be observed on

this site. Night surveys were also done, nocturnal

sampling, and this revealed several barn owls. No

other species were really observed at night.

In terms of other animals quite a few butterflies on the

site. Eighteen species were observed, none of these

are rare or threatened, mostly common and typical of

open disturbed habitats and secondary areas. Many

tree lizards, again no terrestrial reptiles of importance.

And the pond turtle which is an endemic species may

occur on the site. It was not observed but is likely

because of the nature of the habitat. In terms of

endangered species, the only species of concern for



Dr. Williams: the Portland Bight Protected Area, and for the

property is the American crocodile, Crocodylus

acutus. It is protected by national and international

law so it is of concern both in terms of protection of

the species and also protection of humans against

interaction with the species. It has been reported

from the lower reaches of the drain, one or two

reports from a little bit further up but the caretaker of

the property indicated that he has been there fifteen

to twenty years and had not seen any crocodiles

come up on the property. But right now they appear

not to be a risk but they do inhabit the lower reaches

of the drain. As Doctor O’Connor said, the property is

situated within the Portland Bight Protected Area. It is

the largest protected area in Jamaica, it includes both

terrestrial and marine areas and it’s co-managed by

NEPA, the National Environment and Planning

Agency and CCAM, the Caribbean Coastal Area

Management Foundation. It is a multi use area-

industrial concerns, residential concerns, urban

concerns- so it does not mean that no development

can occur but development occurs within certain

guidelines. As Dr. O’Connor said, there has been



Dr. Williams: rapid growth in Old Harbour over the last twenty

years. There used to be a fairly large manufacturing

concern, manufacturing has declined but heavy

industry still exists in the area in the form of electricity

generation and alumina production. Currently most of

the economic activity is related to the process of

urbanization and many persons actually work outside

the area but reside within Old Harbour. It is a growing

community as Dr. O’Connor has said. This map

again, the project area is in red and that boundary

shows the immediate zone of influence and the extent

of our socio-economic survey and interviews all the

way down to Old Harbour Bay. The main land

use in the area is settlement. As we discussed, the

project area is bordered by agricultural activity on

three sides. The population is fairly evenly split with

regard to gender, male and female, and a fairly young

population with most of the inhabitants under the 39

year age group. In terms of public health facilities

there is one clinic in Old Harbour and a satellite clinic

in Old Harbour Bay. The nearest hospital that would

serve this development is in May Pen. Fire brigade

station in Old Harbour- there is one unit which carries



Dr. Williams: a limited supply of water. The town is served by

several fire hydrants but we were told that not all are

in good working condition. The police have about sixty

persons on staff. The crime rate is not considered to

be high in the area. One high school which is where

we are- the Old Harbour High School and five schools

that feed into this. During the survey we were actually

informed that several students actually come from

Spanish Town and other areas to school here.

JPSCo has approved the electrical design for the

project and supply of electricity is not expected to be

an issue. All the water for the project is expected to

come from the well, as I said before a licence is to be

obtained from WRA and the water is to be treated by

the process of reverse osmosis. There is a small

section of a canal, NIC, National Irrigation

Commission canal on the property. This is not

expected to be an issue for the property and it should

be splinted off so the issue of flooding or overflow of

that canal should not affect the property. Now, during

the interviews some concerns were raised by some of

the communities and individuals again they were ad

hoc interviews with individuals, targeted interviews



Dr. Williams: with community groups, stakeholders and so on. One

of the issues raised was traffic, the congestion within

Old Harbour and on the Old Harbour Bay Main Road.

And Dr. O’Connor did his calculations in terms of the

number of houses and the projected number of cars.

A traffic impact assessment was done for this study

as well and the recommendations have been taken on

board in terms of dealing with the traffic. It is really for

increasing, widening the road in the vicinity of the

project area and the project entrance providing

adequate ingress and egress, which are like turn

lanes so that there is no congestion getting into and

out of the property. Change in land use was also

discussed. There were some persons that were a little

bit concerned about lands coming out of agricultural

production, although production might not be the right

word because they are not actually productive but

they are agricultural lands. And we had looked at the

Highway 2000 corridor development plan produced by

the Planning Institute of Jamaica which looks at a one

kilometer boundary along Highway 2000 and looking

at zoning requirements within that. The area where

the development is proposed is zoned for or is



Dr. Williams: recommended to be zoned for residential and urban

use. Potential for flooding we discussed that in terms

of the flooding that exists, it is actually off the property

that drain, but the developers have taken the initiative

to widen the drain as part of the project development

so that there is no risk of flooding for the community

and for their property. Security was raised as an

issue because certain persons in the community felt

that whenever construction work was going on and

large work forces would come in, and with people

coming in and going out, that security was sometimes

compromised. So that this would have to be certainly

addressed to ensure that the crime rate, which I have

said before is not very high, would not increase.

Archaeological and cultural heritage. There really are

no issues on the site, Jamaica National Heritage Trust

was advised about the project and asked to comment

on any heritage issues and the potential for any listed

monuments on the site and there were none. In

terms of the impacts, when we looked at identification

of the impacts, and I will go through the impacts so I

just want you to have a look at some of the

terminology that I will be using. We speak to impacts



Dr. Williams: as being major impacts or minor impacts, reversible

impacts or irreversible impacts. For example the

change in land use is an irreversible impact. Once the

845 houses are put in it is highly unlikely that they will

be taken out and the land reverted to agricultural use.

Not that it is not impossible because it has happened

in other places but that is a type of impact. So we

expect that the change in land use will be irreversible.

Positive and negative impacts. Mostly in

environmental impact assessments people expect the

impacts to be negative but there are several positive

impacts.

During the construction phase there will be generation

of employment, there will be a need for skilled and

unskilled labour, there will be the need for provision of

goods services and supplies and of course the main

impact, the main positive impact will be during the

operational phase when the housing solutions are

available for residents. We have long term and short

term impacts. During the construction phase we do

expect some short term impacts such as increase in

traffic movement in heavy vehicles, haulage vehicles

bringing in equipment and earth materials and so on



Dr. Williams: to the site, but that is a short term impact during the

construction phase. Long term impacts would include

something like solid waste disposal. Once the 845

units are in solid waste disposal has to be taken care

of for the life of the project. So, just having a look at

some of these impacts drainage and flooding I spoke

about that already and that is taken care of in the

engineering design. We don’t expect that, that is

going to be an issue. If you have any questions about

that later Mr. Foreman and Mr. Richardson will be

able to answer any specific questions you have in

terms of the design and the flows and the quantities.

Air quality, we expect that during the construction

phase there will be increased levels of dust, but we

have recommended mitigation measures to reduce

this. Some of these are standards measures. Ms.

Gross had said the project will be developed in

phases so the entire property will not be stripped of

vegetation for construction but only the phase that is

being constructed so that there won’t be exposure of

top soil which can create wind borne particles.

Usually fugitive dust or dust particles are released

during construction but on very dry and windy days



Dr. Williams: wetting is recommended as well as covering of stock

piles of earth materials. Again this is a short term

impact but we have to look at this particularly because

the Belmont Park community is so close. If you have

any questions on air quality after I am going to direct

you to Mrs. Shirley she was not here during the

introduction but she is here now. Can I just ask you to

stand Miss Shirley. She is a Director and Consulting

Principal with Environmental Solutions Limited and

she is our environmental chemist so she can answer

your questions on the air quality and the water

quality. I spoke about the surface water quality we

know that there are some inflows into that drain some

of them we have identified some of them we are not

sure of, but unfortunately that is outside the control of

the developer. Ground water quality and quantity- as I

said the yield as projected by the WRA is sufficient to

supply the entire development and the water would

have to be treated in order to be adequate for

portable use, and the treatment option reverse

osmosis is well known technology, and that is what is

being proposed. Hazard vulnerability, we contacted

the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency



Dr. Williams: Management which is usually done in our EIA’s to

determine if they have any issues on the site. The

main issue that they had was the drain as it exists, the

flooding that exist there but other than that no other

potential hazard. I would just like to take the

opportunity to welcome Mr. Peter Espeut who just

came in, the director of CCAM, I am sorry he missed

my section on Portland Bight Protected Area but I did

mention it.

Ecology- habitat will be removed if we are going to

remove vegetation to put in houses, so that will be an

impact- that will be an irreversible impact. But with

landscaping and the maintenance of green areas

there will be some aesthetic appeal and there will

always be the opportunity for some species that are

displaced to possibly come back in. But certainly the

habitat will change, the ecological features of the area

will change and that is something that cannot be

completely mitigated. Traffic, we spoke about that,

that there is a projected negative impact in terms of

the increase in traffic with the widening of the road

and the widening of the road in the vicinity of the

project area and the entrance.



Dr. Williams: Engineering should help to alleviate some of the

problems. The developer has been in discussion with

the National Works Agency and the National Works

Agency is supposed to be also widening the road

beyond the project area, they have not given a time

line for this, but this is supposed to be done.

Public health and safety issues. Really I think the

water quality is the main one in terms of the

Environmental Health Unit having to approve the

supply of the potable water source as well as the

treatment of the sewage. The sewage effluent will be

disposed of in that existing drain. Mr. Excell is the one

designing the sewage treatment plant and he will be

happy to answer any questions that you have in terms

of the level of effluent, the volume of effluent, and the

types of treatment. That also covers liquid waste

management. Solid waste management is the

responsibility of National Solid waste Management

Authority discussions will be held with them when the

permit is issued and before the operation phase, for

them to determine scheduling requirements, volumes

and load so that they can adequately include this

development in their plans.



Dr. Williams: Cumulative impacts, we looked at cumulative impacts

which are not just the impacts that this project will

have on this site or in this area but because of other

projects that might be going on, or existing impacts.

The main one was the change of land use, as I said

looking at the Highway 2000 corridor development

plan a lot of these areas currently in agricultural use

are being rezoned for urban and residential

development. So that would be a cumulative impact,

this is not the only site that would probably go into

housing in this area. Traffic congestion I have already

spoken about that, that is a cumulative impact

because if other developments come in then the

issues of traffic will be exacerbated. Solid waste

disposal. Again, we know that National Solid Waste

Management Authority does have some challenges in

terms of scheduling and getting enough units out and

keeping a regular schedule and also in terms of

identification of suitable sites, but that is their

responsibility and we expect that, that will be taken

care of. I just wanted to mention the recommendation

that came from other agencies that we have

incorporated. As I said we contacted the Office of



Dr. Williams: Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management

and they had made some specific recommendations

in terms of that drain (1) to correct the ninety degree

angle that is there which contributes to the flooding

problem, (2) to conduct the hydrological assessment

(3) supervision of cut and fill. Now, the first two things

we have done and incorporated into the design of the

project and the engineering design. Cut and fill is not

a real issue, the site is flat so in terms of the

engineering use of the word cut and fill there are no

areas to be cut as such and so we don’t expect - that

is really in terms of slope stability and hazard

vulnerability- but we don’t expect that to be a problem

on the site. They had also recommended

consideration of the eastern boundary to be upgraded

to alleviate flooding but we had no reports of flooding

along the eastern boundary. We also got

recommendations from Jamaica Environment Trust

and I would just like to take the opportunity to

apologize for Diana McCaulay who said she was not

able to be here this evening. They have reviewed the

Terms of Reference and sent comments in directly to

us and the main point that they had raised was that a



Dr. Williams: soil erosion management plan should be designed

and this is because of the risk of soil erosion when

vegetation is stripped. We have included a soil

erosion management plan in the report. It is a very

brief plan because soil erosion is not really an issue

on the property and we had discussed this with

Jamaican Environment Trust. The site is flat, the soils

are not highly erodible and we do have mitigation

measures for reducing soil erosion such as I spoke

about- phasing of the development so that all the

vegetation will not be stripped to expose all the top

soil. The risk is that in the event of heavy rainfall that

exposed soil as well as stock piles of earth material

can be washed into the drain and then that will be

taken along to the coast which can increase high

levels of sedimentation. So, our mitigation measures

include containment of stockpiles of earth materials,

and it is in the interest of the developers to do this so

that if it rains all of his earth materials will not be

washed away. But as I said the soils are not highly

erodible and soil erosion is not expected to be a risk.

Consideration of alternatives, this is also a

requirement in the Terms of Reference to look at



Dr. Williams: various alternatives within the project design. I just

wanted to mention three of them- one is the source of

water. NWC had been contacted about supply of

water but Water Resources Authority had also been

contacted and felt that the NWC would not be able to

supply water with the current situation as it exists, so

the best option is to use the water from the well and

WRA has confirmed that the yield is adequate. In

terms of housing solutions and green space this is

always a challenge for the planners to try to maximize

how many units are available, but adhering to the

requirements of town planning for the amount of

green space per habitable acre and Doris spoke

about the green area. You saw them before and the

areas that are available for recreational use playing

fields and so on. The no action alternative, meaning

what happens if this project does not go ahead. If

this project does not go ahead then the land will

remain as is, as abandoned pasture and secondary

woodland until some other developer purchases it and

puts in some other type of development or puts it

back into agricultural use so those are really the



Dr. Williams: options to put in the 845 houses or to just not do

anything with the property.

Okay, next step- we go into a question and answer

session. I have introduced everybody Brandon Hay,

came in he is an ornithologist and botanist and he has

done the field research for us. He is also with CCAM

so he knows a lot about the area. I think I introduced

everybody else- Ian Johnson, from Masters and

Johnson, Commissioned Land Surveyors, he is also

on the project team. So we have a question and

answer session. I also want to recognize the

presence of NEPA, Mr. Leonard Francis, and Miss

Mittoo is here from the documentation centre,

anybody else from NEPA? Okay thank you. So the

next step- we are going to go into a question and

answer session. You can ask questions of any of the

team members. In terms of the requirements the

report is available at the Parish Council Office, the

Parish Library, the NEPA documentation centre and

the NEPA website- it should be up on the NEPA

website. Mr. Perez will have a copy at the site office

and a copy is at the Gore Development head office in

Kingston.



Dr. Williams: After this presentation there is a thirty day period in

which any comments you may have on the project

should be addressed to NEPA in writing. So you can

either take the information that you have received

from this presentation or from reading the report and

put any of your concerns in writing to NEPA within

thirty days, and that is it. So thank you I open up for

question and answer.

QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

Chairman: Thank you Dr. Williams, first our MP is about to ask

us a question and we have a wide team here to

answer. If several persons require question at the

same time I ask that you form a line behind the MP so

that we can have it orderly

done.

Mr. Warmington: The only question that I want to ask, is whether or not

the water from the well that they are going to use

whether it will be accessible to other communities

within the area if they so need in the future? But I am

here today to lend my support to the project itself. I



Mr. Warmington: met with representatives from Environmental

Solutions during the process of the investigation of

the field work and I had basically one concern and

that had to do with the surface run off, the drainage

itself the flooding. And I made some observations

which I am satisfied that they have corrected in itself.

The project to me is a very good one. And as a

Member of Parliament I wish to support it, and if there

were areas that would affect the community and the

people here I would not support it because eventually

down the road they would have problems. As to do

with the traffic I think the highway itself can rectify

that, going to Kingston. I don’t believe this project

would have any adverse effect on the services

provided in the area at this time. They are providing

their own water. As it relates to school, the Ministry of

Education is now in the process of obtaining lands in

the area to build a new primary school and a new high

school, therefore if people from outside the area

acquire these houses there would not be a problem

within the community. As it relates to health services,

the government is now purchasing properties in Old

Harbour to improve the health service to a Type Four



Mr. Warmington: Clinic so right along you would not have a problem.

From my prospective as a Member of Parliament, I

don’t believe that this project would have any adverse

effect on the community and as such I am in full

support of the project as it has been presented.

(Applause)

Chairman: Thank you Mr. Warmington. Basically Mr.

Warmington has given his blessing for the project and

he had a concern about the availability of water from

the project to other surrounding communities. Can

one of your team members address that?

Dr. Williams: Mr. Foreman will address that in terms of the quantity

of water available and how it will be available to

others.

Mr. Foreman: Good evening everyone, my name is Andrew

Foreman from Foreman, Chung and Sykes and we

are responsible for the civil engineering designs for

the project which includes the water supply. When

you deal with water issues you always deal with

quantity and quality and in the approval process we



Mr. Foreman: have to demonstrate that adequate water supply

would be available for the development.

We estimated using an estimate of 4.5 people per

dwelling which is above the national average taken

from the census report of 2000 and we have

presented this to the Water Resources Authority and

they have accepted our estimates of the water

requirement. I can assure you that the well which has

been licenced has more than adequate water, not a

lot more but a bit more than is required for this

development.

Dr. Williams: Mr. Warmington’s question included whether or not

any water would be available for other communities,

but I think that maybe Mr. Gore would have to answer

that.

Mr. Gore: Good evening the water - because we have to do an

RO plant, it has to be operated by a private operator

because the Water Commission has a policy, it does

not take over reverse osmosis water plants, so it is

either going to be done by a private operator or by

ourselves. If that is the case, then we could look at



Mr. Gore: the excess water to see if it could be available to the

community, if it is done by ourselves. If it is a private

entity or another provider then discussions would

have to be done with them. But there is a difficulty

when you do that, you have to make sure that you

can pay for it and becoming a utility company would

be something that would be new and you would have

to get licence for it. And providing water to existing

customers of the National Water Commission who are

having existing problems- it becomes a tricky

question. I hope that answers it.

Chairman: Thank you Mr. Gore, I hope that Mr. Warmington is at

ease now. While people prepare their questions I

must remind you that the deliberations here have

legal ramifications and as such we should all sign the

register at the back. And remember too that the

session is being recorded and when you come to the

microphone please give your basic information, your

name and to which group you are affiliated. As soon

as you have your questions ready you can approach

the microphone. Housing developments will have

positive and negative spin offs. The negative we



Chairman: should all be concerned about and the developers are

trying to mitigate this as much as possible. The

positive ones will be welcomed for the community in

general.

3,000 people they will have needs gardeners-

helpers, baby sitters, and so on, workmen, people

think of expansion, you have masons and carpenters

and so on. For projects such as these when

somebody buys a house it is a very big investment in

terms of their lifetime. And then all should be done to

ensure that when they buy a house - just think of a

couple, they say more times than not, the husband

departs this world ten years on average before the

wife. Think of a little old lady now, sitting in her house

can she live comfortably in that house can she

manage to live alone there. A good project will

ensure that this is possible and then at that time you

would say the developers got it right and the

environmental people got it right, if it cannot happen

then somebody was at fault somewhere along the

line. So we should all work to make sure that this

major investment is livable for quite a long time in

comfort.



Mr. Chen: My name is Michael Chen, I am a private citizen, Sir.

The question I will ask just for clarification. How do

you, in terms of your ecological evaluation, how do

you evaluate how do you do that assessment in terms

of flora, fauna, physical environment what do you

measure? Can you give us a brief description of that?

Dr. Williams: I am going to start and I am going to ask Brandon to

say a little bit in terms of what he has done. But what

you want to know is how we actually assess the

ecological attributes of the site?

Mr. Chen: What is the impact?

Dr. Williams: The impact, okay. I am going to let Brandon say a

little bit about how we actually assess the various

components of the site. In terms of the impact the

main things that we look at in terms of ecological

assessment is the habitat lost or habitat modification

or what we call habitat fragmentation because the

habitat includes the flora which is the basis usually

on which the fauna exist when we are talking about



Dr. Williams: terrestrial habitats. And when you have a

development come in you can either remove

everything as I spoke about an irreversible impact, so

all the ecological features as it exists are removed.

You can modify the habitat meaning change it up or

you can fragment the habitat, some habits are cut in

half or a portion cut off and that can actually affect

how the species live in there. Because species that

need to travel, migratory species and so on may not

survive well in a fragmented habitat because you

cannot get across a boundary, so we look at issues

like that. For this project because the area was so

highly modified and what we really had was

grassland, overgrown cattle grass and some

secondary woodland, and as Brandon will tell you no

distinct zones. So that, in terms of looking at how the

habitat will be altered we did not really predict any

significant negative impacts. The habitat will change

and a lot of the flora will be removed so that is a

negative impact. But a lot of the species that are

there like the birds are what we call ubiquitous

species. They can just move on to the next habitat. It

is not like a primary forest up on John Crow



Dr. Williams: Mountains or Blue Mountains where they live in a

particular area and when that area is disturbed they

find it hard to move on. So this area is already

disturbed so these are species that are used to that

sort of habitat. Does that help you? I am going to let

Brandon say a little bit more about the methods he

used for the different species to help you to get more

out of that.

Mr. Hay: Good afternoon everyone, I am Brandon Hay I am a

consultant, ecological consultant on this project. I am

also the scientific officer with CCAM Foundation,

CCAM as I believe was mentioned is the NGO

working with NEPA on the Portland Bight Protected

Area and this development does fall within the

boundaries of that protected area. In seeking to

assess the ecological importance there are two things

you really need to hone in on. What is there, and

then you need to know some of the characteristics of

some of the species that are there. And so the first

thing we did was to have a quick assessment of the

site just visually what is there and then sort of

determine how we were going to do a sampling



Mr. Hay: programme and the sampling programme that you

design is based on the characteristics of the terrain

and the species that may be there. And the end

product of that is an idea of what is there and how

many. In other words you get a species list and an

abundance list and from that the second stage is to

sort of assess those species that are there. Dr.

Williams spoke about some species which are very,

very restricted in range and which are very sensitive

to habitat change. And she also mentioned that this

particular site is highly disturbed it is basically

secondary pasture and therefore those species

thatare there are naturally highly adaptable, they have

already made themselves a home in what is a highly

disturbed habitat. And so, the additional disturbance

of course is likely to have more negative impact on

possibly the abundance and the diversity of species

that are there. But then you have to weigh this in

terms of whether these species are common or not.

And for the most part the species that are here are

common not only in disturbed habitat but in

undisturbed habitats as well. And so we did not have

any major red flags, when you are doing these things



Mr. Hay: you are looking for endemic species for instance, and

you are looking for restricted species and you are

looking for that type of thing. And we did not have

any major red flags with the exception of the crocodile

as was mentioned and the crocodile is controversial

because it has a two-fold relationship. One we are a

danger to it and it is a danger to us, so we had to do

some thinking about that. So that is basically what we

need. I don’t know if I properly answered the question,

but that is basically what I did.

Mr. Chen: Was there a need for any consideration of say

relocation or anything like that in your study?

Mr. Hay: Not of any of the species that were there. As I said

before everything that was there was very common

was very plastic, very adaptable and they would very

quickly sort of move themselves around the

construction work and some of them will eventually

come back as vegetation, landscaping and so on,

comes back into the area. Most of the species are

quite happy in suburban environments as well, and



Mr. Hay: this habitat would naturally be suitable for them as

well. It may not support as many of them, because

there would be a net loss of space that would be

available. But we did not consider that for any of the

species at all that really was not a necessary

consideration.

Mr. Chen: Thank you.

Mr. Cameron: My name is Errol Cameron, Chairman of the Old

Harbour Bay Fishermen Co-op. I am an active

member of the community development association,

that is Old Harbour Bay. I have a number of

questions and you have to bear with me because I

have not seen the report and it is the first time I hear

where to get it and all these things which is very

unfortunate. The first one is the simplest one and it is

directed to Mr. Gore, presently I can actually count

maybe five or more developers who have not met

their obligations in terms of certain things for housing

development in this country. And the Jamaican

legislation that is existing does not seem as if it ties

them or holds them to those obligations. What will be



Mr. Cameron: in place for this one which will make it different to

ensure that water is there, light is there, road is there,

road is maintained, drain is maintained I want to know

what is there. Simply, you might not have to answer

because I am going to write these concerns really.

But the ones that I need answers for - but you can

think about that Mr. Gore and if you wish to answer

that later on you can answer. First of all I look at the

picture of a house somewhere there and you speak

about the framework of the roof being timber and it is

slope roof, and you speak about extension going to

the back and all of that thing. What about going up on

top and why timber roof? What about slab roof top

roof you add on to the top because we are not paying

for the space upstairs so why that type of

development? She needs to answer that because I

have about ten more questions quickly.

Mr. Gore: In relation to your question about complying with

regulations...

Mr. Cameron: No, not complying with regulations you know because

some regulations are not enough to tie you to certain



Mr. Cameron: obligation, so I am not asking about complying with

the existing ones because a lot of developers they do

not live up to certain things and the law cannot hold

them to it and I know of some of those. So I am not

speaking about existing regulations, because it is

easy you can just say this and that and you have to

comply with it but there are others. I have seen in this

country where a lot of developments have taken place

and I can name a number of schemes and the people

have gotten a run for their money, developers finish

and they leave, within five years they disappear and

you cannot touch them after that.

Mr. Gore: In relation to the different aspects of the development

I think you are talking about water supply and sewage

disposal. There is going to be a constant water

supply, there is a well on the property and that well is

going to be operated by a private operator. There is a

sewage treatment plant that is also going to be on the

property that is going to perform the sewage

treatment also to be operated by a private operator,

those are both regulated by the Ministry of Health

which I know about because we have built sewage



Mr. Gore: treatment plants in the past and it is regulated and

operated and checked on a monthly basis. In relation

to roads, drainage those are built by us according to

what is approved and we have to operate until it is

taken over by the Parish Council. And the only way

the Parish Council takes it over is if they come and

inspect it and we have met all the obligations and

done it according to what has been approved. There

is no way to run, you cannot just run because if

something goes wrong we are held responsible and it

is not taken over by the Parish Council. I don’t know if

that answers your question appropriately.

Mr. Cameron: It answers as I expected, but not how it is suppose to

be answered.

Mr. Gore: Gore Developments stands by all the developments

that it has done, we have a history and we have a

reputation...

Mr. Cameron: And so does the Parish Council and NEPA they have

their reputation...



Mr. Gore: But I am not dealing with Parish Council....

Mr. Cameron: You said a while ago they take over and all those

things. We don’t depend on those people anymore,

not even NEPA who is represented here, because I

am going to speak about the sewage treatment plant

and forgive me because I have not seen anything

about the grey water where will that go, will it spread,

will it have tile field because I know it is not going to

the sewage treatment plant, where will that go I need

an answer for that as well?

Mr. Gore: The sewage effluent is going to be discharged...

Mr. Cameron: I know about that one but what about the grey water,

the one that you are going to use to wash your hands,

wash your plate with the grease in it where will that

go? I have not seen anything about that in the

presentation, I don’t know if it is in the report.

Mr. Excell: Good night everyone, it is my understanding that all of

the waste water from the houses will go to the plant

so the grey water will not be separated from the black



Mr. Excell: water and then they all will be treated at the sewage

treatment plant. The water will be of a quality that they

can either reuse it in the community if you need water

to water the lawns or the football field or anything

around the plants or it can be discharged into the

gully. So our suggestion is that, it would be better to

use the water to water the football field rather than

taking the RO water which is more expensive and use

it to water the grass.

Mr. Cameron: I am going to ask Dr. Williams to bring up back the

proposed layout of the site for me because there is a

concern about the sewage treatment plant also. She

said that nobody wants to be near it and then you

have the southeasterly wind blowing maybe nine

months per year and then you are going to put it

northeast of the project so what is that suggesting?

Very near to the gully that she speak about, say the

gully when they do the sampling the copper build up

the manganese, faecal coliform is about certain

standards and yet still you put the sewage plant

where the scent will blow back onto the houses 75%

of the time.



Mr. Cameron: So if that is it, is it that at the top right hand corner of

what Phase 3, the purple area, right? And if true

north, right at the top there is that true north? What is

that arrow pointing that is true north. So the sewage

plant is directly south east of the entire houses where

we get 75% south easterly wind per year. So what is

the intention of putting it beside the gully there? Are

we going to increase what is existing there the bad

condition of the gully or are we going to do anything to

alleviate the gully problem?

Mr. Excell: No, what I am saying is, the quality of the effluent

leaving the plant will be sufficiently treated so that you

can reuse the water to keep the green spaces

irrigated if you want to instead of putting it into the

gully.

Mr. Cameron: Forgive me you know, I don’t know anything about

sewage treatment plant but I can tell you, you have

some existing that NEPA approve. One famous one

is the great salt pond up by Helshire and you can go

there anytime and see the faeces going into the sea

until now.



Mr. Excell: The effluent leaving the plant will leave in that same

gully that is passing through the property and it will go

down to the micro dam below the property that is

where the effluent will end up eventually.

Mr. Cameron: If it goes into that gully it won’t end up in the micro

dam. It will end up in the other gully behind there.

Mr. Excell: Gore Developments has finished a similar plant to this

one and they have been operating it for the last three

years and it is in Innswood and if anyone wants to go

by Innswood and see the type of plant that we are

going to be putting in it is a very similar one to it. I

know your concern because there are a lot of plants

around the country that don’t work...

Mr. Cameron: Yes.

Mr. Excell: ...But I think the problem a lot of time is that people

treat these things as problems and not assets, and if

you look at it, it is water that you can use instead of

putting it in the gully then you can saved the stressed



Mr. Excell: water system that we have in this area for irrigation

purposes rather than using drinking water to water the

grounds. That is my suggestion to you not to see it as

a problem but as a potential asset.

Mr. Cameron: We don’t have a problem with what you are saying

because we are going to hold NRCA to certain things

this time around because they are very famous and

also infamous too for certain things. The next

question, the reverse osmosis process that you speak

about to get out the salinity out of the water that is

certainly going to cost more and the users are going

to expect to pay more in comparison to the one from

the National Water Commission. And I want to find

out if it is really a fact that the Water Commission

cannot supply the water there. I want to find out truly

somebody need to say it and let me understand.

Because I know that in the St. Dorothy’s Plain, the

National Water Commission does not have a problem

with water coming to St Dorothy’s Plain none at all.

They have free flow of water as well as pumped

water, so I don’t understand.



Dr. Williams: I am going to let Mr. Gore answer that but part of your

question that was not answered about the winds and

the sewage treatment plant, and I believe your

concern is odours. If the plant is operating properly

not only is the effluent that is discharged to meet the

NEPA standard it is not to have odours. So only if

there is malfunctioning or something has gone wrong;

so you should not have odours, right Mr. Excell?

Mr. Cameron: When we reach that bridge we will cross it.

Mr. Gore: It is the preference of Gore Developments to have

water provided by the National Water Commission.

We have been informed by the authorities that there

is not adequate water supply to supply water for this

development, it is our choice and our preference to

have it done so and we have been told otherwise. So

we are in agreement with you, we would like to have

water supply for the development by the National

Water Commission but we have not received that

approval from the authorities.

Mr. Cameron: How will the cost of the water compare to the...



Mr. Gore: The RO plant is going to be more expensive.

Mr. Cameron: I mean in terms of percentage how much more you

expect the house holders to pay?

Mr. Gore: It depends on the volume. It is hard to answer that

question right now.

Mr. Cameron: But you must have that in place.

Mr. Gore: It depends on the usage.

Mr. Cameron: You have to follow up on that you can’t say that you

just can’t do that. I am not going to take that I am

going to deal with it further. We are going to change

the whole ecology in and around and we speak about

some of the endemic species to Jamaica like the

mango hummingbird and the streamer tail

hummingbird and all of that. What do you have in the

plan in terms of the vegetation of the people? Are you

going to recommend to them flowering plants or some

old evergreen shrub or something like that? Will there



Mr. Cameron: be any recommendations because we want to get

more environmentally friendly and see if we can

preserve some of those birds? We are going to put

flowering plants, evergreen trees what we are going

to put in them, are there any recommendations?

Dr. Williams: Okay, there are two main things, one is that in the

mitigation measures we usually recommend that any

large trees be retained. It is usually a condition of the

NEPA permit, trees over a certain height that are

outside the footprint of the development meaning

where no houses are no roads will go. For example,

in the green spaces if there are trees there, of a

certain diameter some of those trees should be

retained some of those plants will be there as long as

they are outside the footprint of the development

meaning not where the houses, the drains, the roads,

the sewage treatment plant is to go. The other main

mitigation is that in landscaping we usually

recommend that the developer uses trees that are

native either to the area or to Jamaica and we don’t

import or use what we call invasive species or exotic



Dr. Williams: species, so that will help to encourage the type of

habitat that was there.

Mr. Cameron: Dr. Williams, just look at Portmore for heaven sake,

what type of plants you see them have over there you

understand where I am getting at?

Dr. Williams: I understand where you are.

Mr. Cameron: No bird don’t want to fly in those trees.

Dr. Williams: I understand where you are but I have to let you know

that NEPA is a lot more vigilant now in terms of their

recommendations and permit conditions.

Mr. Cameron: I certainly would welcome that, long overdue if they

get more vigilant. Now I speak of the Stone village in

Old Harbour Bay and stretching coming up on

Brandon Farm coming up to the ‘Calmas’ Property

area and I was told that the Jamaican National

Heritage Trust say that they don’t have any

monument so no concern. Is that true, because the

Arawaks used to live straight across there go down



Mr. Cameron: and we still have artefacts somewhere underneath the

soil. I don’t know could Bryan or anybody else from

the Jamaica National Heritage Trust speak to that for

me please.

Dr. Williams: I am going to ask Mr. Campbell who is our socio-

economic expert, and he was on the site and

discussed the heritage issues so I am going to let him

answer that question.

Mr. Campbell: My thought processes were slightly distracted while

you were asking. Mr. Campbell, I am sorry. I am a

socio economist who also coordinated the

assessment of the heritage elements. I think you are

making the point that there are artifacts that have

been found... where? I am sorry.

Mr. Cameron: Not have been found where.

Mr. Campbell: Sorry okay.



Mr. Cameron: I heard that there was this Arawak village here

because I was not here, and I want to know if it is a

fact that none was on this property?

Mr. Campbell: Let me put it this way, we did what we considered as

due diligence in terms of trying to determine the

historical significance of the site, in fact the Kelly

Whim estate which is just to the west is a well

identified and important area in which there are

heritage elements that are important and certainly

need to be preserved. But with respect to the site that

we are dealing with and, the footprint of the project it

is our opinion that going back into plantation history...

Mr. Cameron: Whose opinion?

Mr. Campbell: The opinion of those who needed to comment on it.

In other words, those who had heritage experience

and were looking at the heritage elements, that the

particular site at which the project will take place was

part and parcel of the cultivated areas of the former

Whim Kelly estate which would probably have been

under sugar, and at several other stages would have



Mr. Campbell: been under several other things. And on inspection of

the surface areas there were no relics found that

indicated that needed to be preserved. Now, there

are two aspects to, you call it Arawak we say Taino,

one is, whether or not you can establish that there

were settlements. Sometimes you may find evidence

of presence, but not necessarily evidence of

settlement. We found none of either and therefore,

we, to the extent that we were able to pass an

informed opinion, there was no significant heritage

associated with the footprint of the project. Not so, for

just to the west, of where we are dealing with.

Dr. Williams: Can I just add to that George in addition to our

investigations under the environmental impact

assessment we had also written to the Jamaica

National Heritage Trust and sent them a map of the

site and asked for their records to determine what

they had on the site. I also spoke with them on the

phone and they had no listed - they called them Listed

Monuments for the site.



Mr. Cameron: You see the problem with that you know, and it is not

for this meeting but the Jamaica National Heritage

Trust is actually relying on us for information and I

have not heard anything for us about this project or

anything like that in the community. It is not like one

time...

Mr. Campbell: You want to move on or you are still on the same

subject?

Mr. Cameron: I have two more questions. One which was not

answered, is there a problem why they set a two hour

meeting and I did not get a report it need to be spelt

out now. We speak about the roof of the house and

Mr. Gore did not answer that. Why we are not putting

up slab roof too we are not looking back.

Ms. Gross: I would like to answer that question. You asked a

valid question why do the houses not have a flat roof

or a pitched roof where a flat roof is easily expandable

going upwards because there is already a slab in

place. The reason is because a flat roof house is

extremely hot and it has been proven by past projects



Ms. Gross: of that nature, Portmore being the most famous that

living in a concrete roof house is extremely

uncomfortable. Hence we chose to improve that two-

bedroom house to have a pitch roof. Warm air rises,

therefore if you have more height in a house it can go

up and dissipate and disappear.

Mr. Cameron: The last question now, the nature of the soil,

limestone and all of that, what do we have for the

mitigation in terms of the erosion because going into

the sea we cannot take anymore salinity down there

now. And I can sit now. (Applause)

Dr. Williams: What was your question- soil erosion? As I said there

is a soil erosion management plan, but we don’t

expect that soil erosion will be a major issue because

the site is going to be developed in phases. So only

the phase that will be constructed will be stripped of

vegetation and the soil exposed. There will be a set

back regulation from the drains that there won’t be

stock piles of any earth materials so that in the event

of heavy rainfalls materials won’t wash down into the

drain and be taken down to the coast. The soils are



Dr. Williams: really not highly erodible, the land is quite flat no

steep slopes and so we don’t expect any wash down

of soils in heavy rainfall.

Chairman: Thanks. I hope that answers you question.

Ms. Davis: I am Bev Davis, Constituency Secretary JLP. Don’t

you think that the main from the Highway 2000 one?

How do you ensure that the traffic will not back up in

case of emergency? I have three questions. And

what is there for your water storage?

Mr. Foreman: I introduced myself earlier, I am Andrew Foreman

from Foreman, Chung and Sykes, could you go

through the questions one by one please?

Ms. Davis: Do you think that the main entrance is to be as far as

possible from the highway?

Mr. Foreman: Okay, in terms of backing up, that would require that

you would have to stop in order to make your turn.

Coming from Old Harbour to Old Harbour Bay we

have a deceleration lane and a large radius curb so



Mr. Foreman: that you can get into the subdivision quite easily okay

and a dedicated lane for the through traffic to go to

Old Harbour Bay. So in terms of backing up coming

from the highway that should be minimized by that

road geometry. In terms of coming from Old Harbour

Bay into Old Harbour we have a through lane that is

to go straight through. People who would be coming

out of the development would have to stop to ensure

that it is clear as well as a middle turning lane that

allows for stocking. This means that people who

originate their journey from Old Harbour Bay can go

into that lane and come out of the way of the person

who wants to go through to Old Harbour or Highway

2000 so as to minimize back up. In terms of getting

on to Highway 2000 and going on to Old Harbour

Bay, the intersection is sufficiently far, greater than

300 meters from the intersection with Highway 2000

which ought to be adequate for traffic getting on to the

Highway as there should not really be a back up to

get on to Highway 2000 as such apart from the right

hand turn in the morning to go into Kingston.

Ms. Davis: What is there for your water storage?



Mr. Foreman: Water storage, we have included a water storage tank

that is as recommended by the Jamaica Institution of

Engineers which is of the order of 200,000 gallons

which is more than one day’s supply of water. You

had a third question?

Chairman: That was it. Thank you my dear that answers your

question. I see Mr. Espeut heading towards the

microphone.

Mr. Espeut: Good evening, Peter Espeut, CCAM. I have had a

look at the document in outline, I have not read every

word and as far as the environmental side of things

the area is not in its natural condition, as Margaret

said, it is disturbed. It was not only disturbed last year

or ten years ago or a hundred years ago, it was

disturbed 200 years ago when Mr. Kelly who was the

House of Assembly Member in 1690 or whatever

disturbed it, so it has been disturbed a long time. The

concern of course is about the present disturbance

that might be done. So Errol asked a question about

the wind blowing the sewage vapor on to the site and



Mr. Espeut: Margaret’s answer was that when it is treated it is not

supposed to have an odour, but of course before it is

treated it is still flowing there. So it is still flowing

there before it is treated and that possibly is the odour

that will blow on to the scheme, not the output of the

sewage treatment, but the input going into the

sewage treatment.

That odour will blow on to the scheme. You want me

to ask my questions all at once or you are going to

answer them one by one? I will wait.

Dr. Williams: Let him continue.

Chairman: Continue.

Mr. Espeut: Sure. The last question about the water storage that

amount of water that is stored is in a central place

available to everybody is that it?

Mr. Foreman: Yes.

Mr. Espeut: One disadvantage of building the slope roof of course,

is that people want to put a plastic tank on their



Mr. Espeut: premises for their household use. But when the roof

is sloped like that- and I understand about the heat

and Portmore- but a disadvantage is that when the

roof is like this there is nowhere to put a water tank

and so that might have been part of the question that

was asked about water storage? But my main

question has to do with the water supply because you

said that it is a private company and then you moved

on. But I am sure the possible home owners would

like to know what that means, that if it is not the

National Water Commission, then the Water

Commission could charge x dollars per thousand

gallons, but the private company could charge two

times, or three times. And you know they could

double the price tomorrow and then next month say

well we were not sure of the cost and increase it

again the following month. And so this introduces an

element of uncertainty for the householder and their

budgeting responsibility. So we know that the

National Water Commission comes under the public

utilities commission, and that when they make a ruling

the water price is x then all across Jamaica the NWC

has to follow that. But this company is not NWC and



Mr. Espeut: it can say well we are using reverse osmosis and

therefore we must double the cost because reverse

osmosis is more expensive than the regular sand

filtration or whatever. And then on top of that there is

the NWC practice. If the water cost is x then the

sewage cost is also x and so, because they assume

that whatever volume of water you use is also coming

out the other end and so they double the thing. Now,

if NWC is using your method of sewage disposal, then

when they double their water price then it means the

sewage price is the same as the water price. But if

your water price is higher than NWC are you then

going to double your water price also which means

that your sewage treatment facility which is the same

as the NWC sewage more than theirs simple because

you are using the same formula of double. So my

question really is Mr. Chairman, what protection is

there for the homeowner who purchases a home and

does not get NWC water but gets private sector water

which is going to be more expensive. What protection

is there for the homeowner that their water bill will not

keep going up and up because the private sector



Mr. Espeut: person says that my costs are going up and up?

Thank you, Sir.

Mr. Excell: With the wastewater treatment plant, when the plant

is run properly the odour that Mr. Espeut is talking

about - You are talking about the collection system

around the houses- that would not be an issue. All the

piping coming from the houses is vented through all

the vents that are built in the houses so any odours

from the collection system will end up being taken

above roof line of the houses- that is a normal

standard practice in building houses. At the plant

now, you have this fresh waste that has not had time

to sit and fester and become very, very anaerobic and

to start smelling tremendously. That will be mixed with

what they call activated sludge that is already in the

plant that has been in there for many days. And

because the activated sludge in the plant is already

strong it will over power the fresh waste coming in,

and the only place you can actually smell it is as if you

are actually standing on top of the tank and you are

over the thing and even that smell is going to be a

very reduced smell because it is not fully anaerobic so



Mr. Excell: that is the best way to describe it. Let me give you a

little bit of background, when you smell the sewage

plant that means that the bacteria that are active at

that point are anaerobic. This plant is an aerobic

plant, and we have a stand-by generator which is

part of the plant so that in the event of a power failure

the plant would be able to run without JPS because

there is a standby generator and that is what keeps it

from smelling because the aerobic bacteria does not

give off odours. So if you do smell the plant that is a

trigger to tell the authorities that there is a problem

with the plant and whoever is operating the plant will

have to address it and there will be regulations from

NEPA that will penalize the operator or the person

responsible for running it so I guess that is the

question. Under normal conditions you won’t get

these odours blowing far distances. And we have had

long discussions with the EHU about this where they

purposely made a setback of the plant of forty meters

so that you won’t even be close enough to the plant to

really smell anything.



Mr. Foreman: I would just like to add something to that same point, I

think Mr. Espeut was speaking about the collection

system. When it gets into the collection system and it

gets to the plant and you pump it now into the sewage

treatment facility. Now, that is regulated by

standards. We use a European Standard that has to

deal with the residence time from the furthest point to

the wet well, which is really a pumping facility. So you

work out the time of travel and the time of residence

in the wet well of the pump station. And we have

designed and sized the well and the pumps to keep

the residence time below that amount that will allow

the wastewater to become septic and so cause

odours, it all has to do with the collection system. We

are aware of it we took it into account in our design

and that can be demonstrated. Our project manager

is reminding me that we have redundancy for

everything in the sewage treatment plant. One

hundred percent redundancy which means, if one

pump goes down there is another pump fully capable

to remove the peak flows from the system.



Mr. Gore: In relation to your second question which is the rates

which a private operator or private provider is going to

charge the future home owners, that is regulated by

the Offices of Utilities Regulation. Andrew will explain

the process to you of getting the licence and when

you get a licence you will have to then show them

your costs and you ask them for a rate that you wish

to charge but they establish the rate. I think it is set for

a year but Andrew can speak to that.

Mr. Foreman: I would just like to speak about a technical aspect

before the OUR. The National Water Commission is

an entity that has been around for many years, I think

it came into being in the 60s taking over from a lot of

other smaller water suppliers. Because of that, the

National Water Commission production verses what

the individual pays for water are two different things.

As is well known, they lose a lot of water that they

harvest or they get from whatever source and treat,

and put all of that energy to pump it to your home.

Quite a bit of that is lost in these older systems. With

modern technology newer and better material is

available. Now the losses will be significantly less in a



Mr. Foreman: brand new system, brand new engineering with

features that will ensure that you stay within a certain

band of pressures with larger pipe sizes. Gore

Developments Ltd. is one of the companies or

developers that really spends some money on their

engineering, and ensures that adequate pipe size is

put in place, that ensures that the energy cost is kept

down which is one component of your cost of water.

So the first thing is that they are putting in a brand

new distribution system that ought to keep the energy

costs lower than what is now with the NWC. The

other aspect to it which is what Mr. Espeut quite

rightly pointed out was, in this system we have an

advanced treatment system which is the reverse

osmosis. What you are doing is to push water

through a membrane and it utilizes quite a bit of

energy. This does indeed increase the cost of water

but the quality of the water delivered to the home

owner will be better. In terms of the cost, any entity

including the National Water Commission has to apply

to the OUR Office of Utility Regulation under their Act

in order to set the tariff or the water rate that you pay.

The private developer has to demonstrate, show all



Mr. Foreman: their associated costs, and do an economic analysis.

Because apart from having a high water bill, you don’t

really want the operator to be collecting too little either

that he cannot sustain the system and the effort to

determine exactly what the water rate will be is

ongoing. Because everybody knows that nobody

wants to pay that much more. That is ongoing, that

will be submitted to the OUR they will have their own

presentation as a part of that process for the review.

Mr. Espeut: We know that the OUR so far has been quite willing to

grant price increases to the government entities, even

frequently and I am quite sure that the private

company will be able to put up a good case for every

increase that it wants especially when it might say to

the OUR, well if we don’t get the increase that we

want, we cant operate we will have to shut down and

therefore the price increase will be granted. What I

am saying, my question really was if the OUR is our

only guarantor for as economical a price as possible, I

don’t know where we are. I believe that we hold the

blade and the private company holds the handle.



Mr. Foreman: It will always make a good case and it has the

ultimate wildcard, we will shut down unless we get the

increase. So the consumer will always have to pay

more.

Chairman: Mr. Espeut requires the input from the OUR. I think

the OUR is the government regulatory body and there

is not much input the private developer could say as

to their operations. As we go on I myself as a citizen

of this area found two questions from people in the

area. First to the eastern border of the project there is

the Caribbean Broilers Hatchery and it produces

quite an amount of effluent which passes to the

eastern side of the project, will anything be done

towards reducing this?

Dr. Williams: We are aware of the inflows into the drain coming

from the hatchery, we have actually spoken with the

hatchery and just yesterday I have spoken with one of

the directors and they have made a committment to

have the situation rectified. They were not aware that

the effluent that they were discharging had the high

nutrients and BOD levels that were detected. We



Dr. Williams: have had discussions with them and even just

yesterday over this public presentation. They have

asked me to state that they have made a

committment to clean up those discharges into the

drain and that recommendation are to be made to

them as how to do it and that they will do it

immediately. So we are aware of it as one of the

main inflows and we have had discussions with them

and their committment is to clean up those

discharges.

Chairman: The final question, I was asked to relay is that if you

go from north to south, through the project down to

the sea you will come from Belmont Park then the

project, then Brampton Farms and then the Old

Harbour Bay fishing community. Now, one resident

from Old Harbour Bay said the aquaculture that is

talking place on Brampton Farms produces some

effluent that affects them and with the furtherance of

development in this area, in this proposed project,

there will be an increased amount of water runoff at a

quicker rate because it is a developed area. Should

there be a concern that there is an increased amount



Chairman: of water passing through the Old Harbour Bay

community from the project? The run-off from the

project through Brampton Farms, how will it impact on

the residents further south in Old Harbour Bay?

Mr. Richardson: My name is Brian Richardson, I am the hydrologist on

the project. In terms of run off from the site going off

site and affecting Brampton Farms and Old Harbour

Bay. The increase will be minimal, it will be about 8%

so if you are having problems now before the project

is built then they won’t see an increase basically that

is what it means. If they are having problems now off

site after the project is complete they won’t see an

increase in that problem they will still have the

problem which was before the project started. If you

understand what I am saying. The amount, 8% more

is roughly about four metres per second a few metres

per second which is not significant, honestly. And you

have retainment structures right at the dam as it

comes off site. That dam has been there since the

70's I believe and that dam contains everything that

runs off from further up the property that comes

through the property and runs down through



Mr. Richardson: Brampton Farms anything there is being contained

within that retainment dam for quite sometime before

it moves further on. So in my analysis looking at it,

an 8% increase would be minuscule. I looked at the

WRA’s data and the ODPEM data, within a one

kilometre radius. They have no reported incidents of

flooding and that would include anything within

Brampton Farms and residents just beyond there. I

hope that answers your question.

Chairman: Thank you, Sir, because we don’t want Old Harbour

Bay people to block the road.

Mr. Richardson: It certainly won’t be because of this project.

Chairman: Anymore questions, the lady looks like me.

Lady: Good evening. You mentioned about BOD and

ordinary people like me don’t know what BOD means.

And in addition to that is it that you are just depending

on the word of the company, or do you have anything

in place to ensure that this BOD is kept at the proper

level?



Dr. Williams: That question had to do with the hatchery inflows,

okay. The BOD is the biochemical oxygen demand. I

am going to ask Mrs. Shirley who is our Chemist to

come and explain what causes that and what the

significance is. In terms of commitment, we have

actually put it in writing to them and given them the

results so that we have a record that we have tested

their outflows and it really is the responsibility of the

regulatory agencies to check. However, because of

this drain running through the developer’s property

and for it not to be a nuisance to the home owners

and also because of the effluent discharges that are

going into the drain there will be monitoring of that

effluent. But they have committed to actually

changing the process that they have now in order to

ensure that their effluent is clear. I hope that

answers. I am going to let Mrs. Shirley explain about

BOD and what causes it and what it means.

Chairman: The background to this is that the hatchery produces

eggs and eggs hatch out to chicken and there is a lot

of organic material that is produced there. So they

have to control their process there.



Mrs. Shirley: SharonMae Shirley, Environmental Solutions. What

is BOD? BOD can be biological oxygen demand, but

in this case it is really bio-chemical oxygen demand.

In natural waters you have what we call dissolved

oxygen and this is the oxygen that is required to

support life. When you have what you call - are you

hearing me at the back - Thank you very much, when

you have substances in water that when they decay

they use up the available oxygen it exerts what is

called a demand for oxygen. So the higher the bio-

chemical oxygen demand it means that there are

more species in the water that are demanding the

little oxygen that is available. So when you have a lot

of these species it means that you have less

dissolved oxygen for natural organisms to exist on.

When you have an elevated oxygen demand it means

that there are a lot of substances there that are

decaying, that are coming from organic and in some

cases chemical sources. They demand this oxygen

and that causes the pollution of the water that is

there. I hope this answers your question.

Lady: Yes, it does.



Mrs. Shirley: And as Dr. Williams explained, the tests that were

done were not done by the company, but by an

independent laboratory. So the results that are there

they have accepted and they have agreed to put

corrective measures in place to reduce the pollution

load to this water body. Thank you very much.

Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, there is no one at the

microphone now and from what you have seen this

evening we asked some relevant questions and

people were interested in seeing that their concerns

were addressed and that problems that they foresee

would be mitigated. I am sure most people in the

area would give their blessing to this project, in so far

as they see the possible problems can be tackled and

properly dealt with. And the other is that, citizens of

the area also foresee a certain amount of increase in

the economic activity in the area. So we thank you all

for coming this evening, we thank the presenters, the

developers Mr. Gore and company and the

community participants for coming here this evening

and enlightening us about the project in general.



Chairman: So in closing, I wish for you all a safe journey home.

Thank you. (Applause)

Adjournment taken at 8:19p.m

**********

final report - public consultation new harbour village · 9 town cryer on the afternoon of the...

Documents