There’s a stink on the beach at Prospect, St James, and one person is convinced she has found the source.
And she has pointed fingers in the direction of a hotel and spa along the beach.
However, the owner of the West Coast property is adamant that it is nothing more than rainwater from the hills.
The woman, who requested anonymity, said for the past year there had been a foul smell along the beach.
“Many of our guests have complained about a rancid smell when they went down to the beach . . . . It’s undeniable. You can smell it, you can see it.”
She said the stench could be smelt inside properties south of the hotel, which initially prompted officials in her building to run checks on their septic systems.
But the septic system in her building was functioning as it should, she said, and everything appeared to lead back to the property up the beach.
“You can see it coming out . . . straight onto the beach and it’s running along the beach and into the water,” the upset woman said.
It was so much, she added, that it collected in a natural drain in the area and even pooled in the yard of a neighbouring house. She expressed concern for the family living there, saying the health of children was at risk.
“We have tried to speak to the management and to the owners to no avail,” she said.
The source stressed going to the media was a last resort born of desperation after it appeared that nothing was being done.
“We’ve tried everything we feel can do, which is why we are now going to the media,” she said.
However, owner and chief executive officer of Waves Hotel and Spa, Ludo Marcelo, has dismissed concerns about the discharge. He also stressed that it had nothing to do with their sewage treatment plant.
“We’re a hotel. We can’t have sewage. We invested five years ago in a treatment plant.
“Basically all sewage is in the treatment plant and at the end of the treatment plant we have water that goes into a well.”
When the water levels in the well rises above a certain level, then it is pumped, he explained.
And that is done every three or four days.
“If there is a lot of rain, what happens is, and this is probably what they are complaining to you [about], we have a water overflow that is rainwater and run-off water that comes from the hill and that goes on the beach. That is all this is.”
Marcelo went on to explain that a run-off drain was built around the same time that the hotel was constructed, and that was about 20 or 30 years ago.
There were two in the Prospect, St James area which, he said, also doubled as an access to the beach.
“There is a pipe that takes all the rain-off water from the hill. Behind us is a ridge, so the water that comes from Highway 1, especially when it rains like over the last couple of weeks as it has been raining a helluva lot, that is the water that comes down and after this time with lot of rain, there is always some sand that is mixed in with the rain.
