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In another matter related to city hall, the silt buildup in the Belize harbor is gone – well, almost anyways.

For months we’ve been documenting the buildup of silt in the Belize harbor. It was turning into a real disaster as the silt continued to push further across the mouth of the Belize River almost clogging the entire canal and making passage rather tricky. But it seems that behind us for the time being, because shortly after the dredge began ploughing into the silt, immediate change was apparent. Today the waves are once again crashing against the seawall and the Foreshore sea-view is restored. But the effort to find a more sustainable solution to the problem is still on. We spoke to the Mayor about this today. 

Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor
"We're very excited that the central government has moved in relation to the dredging work. I have looked at it myself and a substantial amount of it has already been alleviated. One of the things that I will say also is the emphasis on proper maintenance and monitoring. As a result of the flood mitigation project and the city council tends to talk up this project a lot because I see the significant in terms of improvement with the quality of our drainage system and canals in Belize City as a result of that project. They are doing a mapping of the entire Halouver Creek and they will make recommendations in relations to making sure that they are regular monitoring and maintenance including cleaning of the Haulover Creek. I said it before that one of the reasons which we are blessed in terms of Belize City is because of our water ways; the Caribbean Sea, the canals and Halouver Creek, there was a reason why the city was discovered and founded in the first place and it would be a shame if we lose the river. And one of the things that many people international partner spoke to us about and one of the things that we readily recognise is that it shouldn't take a silting up of the river as bad as what had happened before we react. So one of the things we're trying to do at the municipality level is to ensure that we're very proactive and so the flood mitigation project will provide a baseline in terms of developing a plan to regularly dredge and clean that water way so that we have it for a long time going into the future."

"My understanding is that it's not finished as yet, there is still a few more things that has to be done. One of the issues is that right now there is still some piles in the canal which from a previous project and I suspect that those will have to be removed so that the dredging can be continued but I suspect that it's going to be finished very shortly in the near future. You've seen a significant amount of improvement in the nation to the silting up and the water is flowing and there is an increase in terms of the run off so that the dredging works notwithstanding the fact that it is a short term project that has caused significant benefit in relation to the problem."