Silt is choking the Belize City harbor mouth – and as the situation gets progressively worse, no one seems to be doing anything about it! City Hall, Central Government, the Port Authority and the Fort Street Tourism Village management all seem to be looking over their shoulder at the other to see who’s going to tackle the problem.
A few weeks ago, we saw a dredge pop up in the harbor, but, just like that, it’s gone, and a navigational nightmare is turning into an environmental eyesore.
So, who’s going to deal with it and when? That’s what we asked Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley today. It’s the fourth time we are addressing the problem with him, and he was still unable to give us a clear answer:
Daniel Ortiz
"The situation seems to be worsening where harbour is choking on its own silt, will there be dredging, what's going to happen?"
Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"Well I can't say will there be dredging, I know that the city council together with the BTB put together a proposal, the proposal cost 2.5 million dollars, the city council doesn't have 2.5 million dollars to spend on that. I have received a proposal from an individual who wanted to do the dredging for free at least the initial part of it. We have circulated that to the department of the environment and to other regulatory agencies to see among all of us; we are willing to give permission. If they like wise would give their permission for the person to do it for free essentially and that would at least alleviate the silting at the mouth of the river, it won't address the silting all the way up the river but at least that's kind of a start. We've also received proposal from a developer in San Pedro who has 2 large dredgers and he is prepared to do it on terms so that we would pay him over a period of time. I suspect that in the month of June we would make some determination or decision on what is to be done. But let me be very clear this is something that needs to be done, it must be done but it's something that's not directly the responsibility of the city. I mean clearly we have budgetary constraints, we are a municipality, we're doing right now 8 streets, I'm very pleased in relation to how Cinderella Plaza is coming along that has to be financed. If we have to finance something which is not directly our responsibility to the tune of 2.5 million dollars that hits our budget very hard; what we're saying is members of the central government and other agencies really need to step in to make sure that we deal with this issue as an urgency and if we can get them to at least cooperate and authorize the person who would do it for free then that's going to be good. If they don't want to do that then I think that some kind of accommodation can be made in relation to doing it with somebody on terms so that we would pay them over a period of time."
The Mayor tells us that the harbor and the coast line are treated as crown lands under the law, so it comes under their responsibility.
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