Dear Editor,

It may come as a surprise to many that two able-bodied young men drowned in the waters of Mullet Bay last Saturday. Please allow me to explain my perception as to how easily this can happen, and my suggestion as to how future incidents may be avoided at minimal expense on not just this beach but other beaches on our beautiful island.

Dear Editor,

It is nine in the morning and a purple dawn is rising with difficulty in the east while a strong ice-wind is blowing over the cold North Sea to the west. It is February 2008 and I am standing with fifty of my fellow Master students at the Volgermeer Polder, a former toxic waste dump for the city of Amsterdam. In front of us two million square meters of garbage and dangerous chemicals are being transformed into a natural reserve by engineers contracted by the city of Amsterdam. My professor, Dr. Joyeeta Gupta – a Nobel Prize Laureate – lectures on the process of changing a national health hazard into a viable natural reserve.

While listening to Dr. Gupta speak I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Volgermeer and our Landfill back home on St. Maarten. The Volgermeer polder, which is approximately ten kilometres north of Amsterdam, is an area of land saturated with dykes and streams and lakes. It used to be a peat farm, the peat used to warm beautiful Amsterdam throughout its history. At about the turn of the last century the city decided to get rid of its garbage at the polder, ferrying in mass amounts of waste on garbage boats and dumping it in the lakes and bogs which dot the area.

As Amsterdam grew in size so did their garbage and soon the dump spread to immense dimensions. The area was plagued by fires caused by escaping gas and the residents in the area started to complain about their health; strange infections, respiratory problems and diseases caused by the lowering of their immune systems. All of this sounded eerily familiar.

The city of Amsterdam closed the area in the eighties and sent teams of scientist to monitor and take samples of the soil and water. They soon found that dangerous chemicals that leaked into the soil and groundwater, chemicals such as Agent Orange, famous for being used in the Vietnam war, and PCBs – a pesticide that causes deformities in both animals and humans.

As we started our tour of the area a representative of the company that was involved in the project started to explain the process by which a waste dump was transformed into a nature reserve. The streams and lakes that are a part of the polder were dredged and the silt used to cover the dump to about two meters high. The city of Amsterdam also provided soil from its various building projects to cover the dump and a special layer of plastic-like organic material was placed on top, a process called natural capping.

This material, which is widely used and quite inexpensive, allows for the gasses and fumes to escape while preventing further contamination to the area. On top of this layer peat moss and grasses were planted which eventually dissolved the garbage under it and in a few short years a viable ecosystem started to develop with clean water with fish and frogs and swans and ducks.

I started to think that perhaps this may be a solution for us here as well. Even with some of the advances that St. Maarten has had regarding conservation in the last four years there are still three issues which blemish our reputation in terms of environmental protection. One is the need for a terrestrial park to protect and conserve our land-based flora and fauna; the second is the continued challenges faced by our wetlands; and the third, and this is by far the issue of most concern both for the health of our environment and that of our population, is the Dump.

With the amount of chemicals and garbage entering into our soil, wetlands and into our lungs when the dump is on fire we need to address the issue of the landfill yesterday. The heavy metals and other pollutants present on the Dump and the surrounding area are a national health hazard. A waste-to-energy plant is good and very necessary to mine the current landfill. But why not make it better? A waste-to-energy plant combined with a complete rehabilitation of the area, including that of the Great Salt Pond, which is the reason why St. Maarten, our Soualiga, exists in the first place.

If the Pond is dredged and the silt used, if the tons of soil from all of the projects current and planned are used to realize a sustainable solution for one of the most embarrassing scars on our island, then yes we will be at the vanguard of forward green thinking in this region. For it is only when we solve the issue of a landfill in our capital and in our natural and national heritage, can we speak of sustainability.

I remember the tour being over and having to return to my tiny apartment in the city to prepare for the next day’s class. I remember how hard it was for me to focus because I couldn’t help but think how useful this would be for my home. Imagine a green park with paths and fountains and bird-watching blinds and swings for children where garbage once stank in the blazing sun and where flies and midges once made life miserable.  

Imagine it being the centre of the capital of a new St. Maarten; the fact that it was a dump a vague and unpleasant memory, like the memory of the taste of aloes on our sucking-thumbs as children. Imagine the Salt Pond, the cradle of our society, gently lapping at clean green shores. Imagine our grandchildren, students at our university, being lectured on how a dump was turned into a natural reserve. Imagine the lecturer, one of our children, winning the Nobel Prize for Science. Anything is possible under the Caribbean sun.

For more information on the Volgermeer Polder please visit: http://www.rnw.org/archive/transforming-chemical-dump-nature-area

Tadzio Bervoets

Sint Maarten Nature Foundation

Dear Editor,

Do we have a record of the number of court cases which government has won as opposed to how many government has lost? I have been asking myself and others this question for quite a while now, because in my opinion it is a very long time that I have not heard of government winning a court case. I stand to be corrected, but that vote-buying case is about the closest government came to winning and then we did not hear anything for a while again.

Some might ask where is Russell going with this now. Is he not content that the civilian is being redeemed or cleared? That is not the case. I was listening to reactions to the article on the front page in which Heyliger wants more information on the one million euros which was agreed to pay VAMED (without VAMED lifting a straw in the building of the hospital).

What I picked up sitting there is that because it has become the norm that after headlines (like in this case) in the paper, nobody hears anything else (there is rarely follow-up) about those cases in which as a habit it involves plenty money. Just like in Donald Trump cases, so-called other smoke screens are created and the last case is forgotten. I sat there and thought, this is exactly what happens.

When I wanted to say something in defence, I was interrupted with: This is what we have learned to do. The Dutchman, when he gets caught resigns in order not to have to hang out dirty linen. Here, we go to court because we know we are going to lose and there will be no follow-up and all is hushed later.

Theo is making noise now because that should have been his deal and Lee is getting the credit. Oops, wrong word. It will look as if Lee brought the project. Which reminds me of when Lenny Priest was commissioner. So with all his experience of how things work in government, is Theo surprised?  

By the way, I got much more feedback than usual in connection with the barrier by L'Escargot. People are of the opinion that whoever opens the barrier without permission should get a fine, of which he proceeds should help pay for the upkeep of that barrier.

I am not sure how the layout of Front Street was in years gone by, where the heart of the shopping is concerned, so I would not be able to comment on which stores were there first or not. In any case, I think the person who said it is discrimination against the stores below the barrier, has a valid point.

One taxi driver wanted to know if she had a disabled passenger (person in a wheelchair) for Sea View Hotel what should she do. I told her she should find out from the Minister concerned, what motivated him to sign that decree? What I would like to know is if this was discussed with the emergency departments? For your information, motorbikes and bicycles pass on the side of the barrier regularly.

Russell A. Simmons

Dear Editor,

Please allow me a few words to praise your recent post regarding posting early-warning flags at beaches to help avert future tragic loss of life, such as occurred recently at Mullet Bay.

Your plan is brilliant; in addition to creating local jobs for life guards, with minimal additional cost to the Government they could ask/require existing beach businesses to merely check to see which flag should be posted for the day as a Beach Danger Warning, and do so. I would suggest supplementing this plan with an additional flag being posted at each beach area. Please follow along with me.

I am not a resident, but a long-time visitor to your (my) island, having spent over 60 weeks on-island over these years. I am fully aware of online discussion boards, where the subject of beach water pollution surfaces regularly. These concerns are usually well founded, by personal reports and often with coverage from your newspaper, as you report Nature Foundation findings, or Government warnings, or even simple news stories of sewage running down streets or bubbling up on Backstreet.

Of course, you must continue to report such findings, but what is missing is any reported follow-up. Was that leak resolved? Was that problem solved? Was that finally flushed out to sea? Was the water re-tested? Is it now healthy? That is much harder to find.

As Government (hopefully) implements a Beach Danger Warning flag system, why not also push for a simple Beach Water Quality Warning, alongside the same flags?

Gary W. Taylor

Visitor