The Tribune

DREDGING at Nygard Cay has had negative effects on the environment, according to a series of environmental impact assessments carried out in the area.

Opponents of the development claim these reports contradict Peter Nygard’s statements published in The Tribune yesterday that his activities show no adverse effects.

Ecologist and oceanographer Kathleen Sullivan Sealey, formerly of the University of Miami, has conducted several studies on the issue. The impact of the other groyne-building and the related dredging has been studied by professionals from the University of Miami and elsewhere.

According to reports prepared by the independent professionals who have studied the works, the construction and existence of those other groynes and the dredging continues to cause damage to the seabed and sea grass, disturbing and potentially destroying habitat for marine life in Clifton Bay and starving the downdraft beaches to the east of sand and accelerating erosion along those beach fronts.

An environmental incident report on August 9, 2005, found “dredging that took place before 2005 caused physical damage and destruction to about 6,000 square metres of sea grass beds with as much as 12,000 cubic metres of fill sand removed from West Bay”.

In addition, a 2005 Coastal Incident Report describes the dredging as pumping sand onshore where it is trapped by the artificial reefs and notes that when dredging, “no sediment curtain was used and massive destruction to the near shore seagrass occurred in a large area”.

A 2011 University of Miami Sea Floor Report records that as a result of the groyne-building and dredging Clifton Cay is left with “large holes and devastated sea beds which are littered with plastic debris, steel wires, rock debris, bottles, cinder blocks, PVC pipe fragments, etc”.

According to a report after a site visit to Simms Point on January 24 2010, the area of sea floor impacted by coast development at Simms Point (the former name for Nygard Cay) encompasses 84,000 square metres. This is the area directly impacted by dredging, destruction to the sea grass bed, debris and trash from land.