The source of brown sea water spreading across Carlisle Bay remains in question as both beachgoers and environmental scientists have disputed that ocean and climate-related factors are the cause.
In a Letter to the Editor, Professors Emeritus Dr Julia Horrocks, Dr Robin Mahon and Dr Hazel Oxenford, at the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies, disputed the claims made by director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit, Leo Brewster, last week.
Throughout recent weeks, concern has mounted among residents and beachgoers after the water across Carlisle Bay appeared brown, resulting in closure to swimmers over the weekend.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Sun, which appeared May 17, Brewster said that the phenomenon, referred to as “green water”, normally occurred between February and mid-April but arrived unusually late this year. He attributed it to delayed freshwater flows from the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers in South America, which created unusually high water levels around Barbados.
He said that this disrupted the beaches’ normal recovery period after the winter swell season. The director also dismissed that the issue was being caused by increased coastal development, saying: “There’s none, It’s island-wide.”
In a response to the article, the scholars indicated through photographs derived from live satellite images under the IWCP camera streams that the brown water emanated from the Fort Carlisle condominium block on Burkes Beach and was first detected as a brown plume of soil from the development site.
“This eight-storey concrete building is constructed on the ‘living beach’, despite space on the land side that would have allowed it to be set back even beyond the legal limit of 100 feet from the high-water mark. Had the developers set the property back further, the recent high swells would not have washed the soil, brought in for landscaping the site, into the sea.
“Since April, this soil has been leaching from the site every high tide, forming a brown water plume in front of the building that has been clearly visible on publicly accessible webcam footage, culminating in the high swell event over last weekend on May 16,” the letter read.
It noted that while Barbados regularly receives pools of lower salinity “green water”, they would be unusual so early in the year and would not result in water the colour of what was revealed in the photographs and what appeared on Carlisle Bay.
On Wednesday, the Weekend Nation visited the site of the nearly completed Fort Carlisle development, where a foreman confirmed that last Saturday, high sea swells resulted in the landscaping soil being drawn into the sea.
“The weather came in and pushed down everything. We had some soil in there and [the sea swells] came in higher than expected and just took everything inward. When the environmental people came in, we just moved all the equipment,” he said, confirming that all landscaping was paused until the go-ahead from the environmental officials as well as Town and Country Planning.
A frequent beachgoer to the area and swimming instructor who opted to remain anonymous said that for the past two weeks he had seen the high surf carrying the mud from the condominium on the coastline onto the beach, leaving a scent of cement.
“The high surf came in and it dragged all of that dirt because it went all the way up into the hotel, along with another property next door that is doing some dredging as well. That pulled all of that mud into the sea and there was a strong scent of cement on the water as well.
“For quite a few days, nobody was going into the water. Then on Saturday you had a whole heap of lifeguards on the beach telling you don’t go in the water because it’s this and it’s that. They don’t know what it is. There were supervisors and two beach wardens checking the same area, and they went immediately to the area where it was coming from,” he added.
While the environmental professors noted that beach erosion and the effects of global warming on corals remained a pressing concern, the local sources of stress on the country’s reefs were a problem that could be directly mitigated.
“If new developments are appropriately set back, there is no need for the protective hard structures like sea walls and boulders, which themselves exacerbate beach erosion, and also less chance of soil being washed into the sea,” the letter read.
(JRN)
