Court of Appeal Justices have refused Bimini Blue Coalition's request to have an injunction imposed on Resorts World Bimini's dredging activities in North Bimini.
In seeking the injunction, Bimini Blue Coalition claimed the developers failed to uphold a court undertaking they had made not to dredge until they notified the environmental group that they had all necessary permits or approvals and provided copies of them.
The reasons for their ruling, a majority vote of two to one, are expected to be released in documents on Tuesday.
Comments
B_I_D___ 10 years, 6 months ago
All my faith in this country has been utterly destroyed...thank you PLP and our legal system!!
realfreethinker 10 years, 6 months ago
A travesty The Plp seem to have a seek and destroy mission for Bahamians > We had better wake up before it's to late NIA ,NSA spy games
ETJ 10 years, 6 months ago
In the face of clear photographic evidence of UN-mitigated environmental destruction, the court declined to act, and therefore allowed the destruction to continue. The EIA and the EMP and the questionable permits or lack thereof, are obviously worthless pieces of paper to be wantonly disregarded by even the highest court in the land.
Can't wait to hear the reasons. It will be hard to disavow that under-the-table deals were obviously made all round. My faith in the integrity of our judiciary is severely diminished. No rational person could view those photos of devastation and believe that the environment was being protected per the EIA and EMP. Which were obviously never meant to be taken seriously.
What kind of government would allow this level of destruction of their natural resources and go to court to defend their support of same???
Cry shame on everyone involved in this destroying of Bimini. When the fish, conch, crawfish are no more, and the tourists stop coming because our pristine waters are no longer pristine...will they then realize the depth of the crimes against nature they have committed?
This is not just a crime against Bimini. This impacts the entire Bahamas. Bimini today. West End, Guana Cay, and others yesterday. Who will be next? If this is allowed, then the rest of the Bahamas is fair game.
USAhelp 10 years, 6 months ago
What the real issue is that the mega resorts off the full package. Tourist have no need to shop outside in the community. You can get everything you want at the resorts tour tckets,restaurant,straw goods great beaches. Thank you Atlantis , Bah Mar an Bimini Resorts
242orgetslu 10 years, 6 months ago
This is the link where the full story is: http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/MA…
Across the inky-blue Gulf Stream from Florida, near the sheer edge of the Great Bahama Bank, a new island is emerging from the sea. Although it bears the appealing name Ocean Cay, this new island is not, and never will be, a palm-fringed paradise of the sort the Bahamian government promotes in travel ads. No brace of love doves would ever choose Ocean Cay for a honeymoon; no beauty in a brief bikini would waste her sweetness on such desert air. Of all the 3,000 islands and islets and cays in the Bahamas, Ocean Cay is the least lovely. It is a flat, roughly rectangular island which, when completed, will be 200 acres and will resemble a barren swatch of the Sahara. Ocean Cay does not need allure. It is being dredged up from the seabed by the Dillingham Corporation of Hawaii for an explicit purpose that will surely repel more tourists than it will attract. In simplest terms, Ocean Cay is a big sandpile on which the Dillingham Corporation will pile more sand that it will subsequently sell on the U.S. mainland. The sand that Dillingham is dredging is a specific form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, which is used primarily in the manufacture of cement and as a soil neutralizer. For the past 5,000 years or so, with the flood of the tide, waters from the deep have moved over the Bahamian shallows, usually warming them in the process so that some of the calcium carbonate in solution precipitated out. As a consequence, today along edges of the Great Bahama Bank there are broad drifts, long bars and curving barchans of pure aragonite. Limestone, the prime source of calcium carbonate, must be quarried, crushed and recrushed, and in some instances refined before it can be utilized. By contrast, the aragonite of the Bahamian shallows is loose and shifty stuff, easily sucked up by a hydraulic dredge from a depth of one or two fathoms. The largest granules in the Bahamian drifts are little more than a millimeter in diameter. Because of its fineness and purity, the Bahamian aragonite can be used, agriculturally or industrially, without much fuss and bother. It is a unique endowment. There are similar aragonite drifts scattered here and there in the warm shallows of the world, but nowhere as abundantly as in the Bahamas. In exchange for royalties, the Dillingham Corporation has exclusive rights in four Bahamian areas totaling 8,235 square miles. In these areas there are about four billion cubic yards—roughly 7.5 billion long tons—of aragonite. At rock-bottom price the whole deposit is worth more than $15 billion. An experienced dredging company like Dillingham should be able to suck up 10 million tons a year, which will net the Bahamian government an annual royalty of about $600,000.
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