Cap Juluca Resort Beach - Barbados Sand
Cap Juluca is burning through money. Wish they’d give me some. The barge load of sand due three weeks ago finally arrived last Sunday from Barbados. But, it’s ‘bad sand’, a darker colour than the ‘good sand’ on the beach. So, they’re digging huge pits on the beach. Like twenty feet deep full of water. They are piling up the ‘good sand’ in big mountains of sand. They’re filling the holes with ‘bad sand’ and then topping them off with ‘good sand’. You’ve got to see it to believe it. Forecasts call for large seas tomorrow. We’ll have to see what happens to these mountains of sand. Really pouring some bucks into the old place. They open on Monday.
What a start to the tourist season!
… from the Corruption-free Anguilla blog story Development
Barbados Sand: Who Profits? Who Gives Permission? Who Buys? Who Sells?
It is interesting how you can see something happening all your life and not really know anything about what you’re watching. Then one day you start to ask yourself a few questions about what you’ve seen and you discover that you know very little.
Take sand, for instance.
Last week a barge-load of Barbados sand arrived in Anguilla where it was spread on the private beach of the Cap Juluca resort. As I read Don Mitchell’s article about it I wondered what part of Barbados the sand was taken from. Considering the poor state of some of the beaches on the West coast and the apparent shortage of sand to dress them up occasionally, the question about where the sand was taken from is more important than some people from abroad might imagine.
Then I wondered about who collected the sand, who owned the sand and what government permissions they might have needed to collect and sell the sand off the island.
I’d love to know the answers to these questions. Can anyone assist me?
BFP Reader “Akabozik”
UPDATE:
To thieves, Caribbean sand is pure gold
Beaches disappear by the truckload for construction projects. The islands suffer.
By Danica Coto
Associated Press
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Ahh, the Caribbean. Sun, surf. But where’s the sand?
It is disappearing at alarming rates as thieves feed a local construction boom.
Caribbean round grains, favored in creating smooth surfaces for plastering and finishing, are being hauled away by the truckload late at night. On some islands, towns and ecologically sensitive areas are now exposed to tidal surges and rough seas…
… continue reading this article at the Philadelphia Inquirer (link here)
Three arrested in stolen sand probe
BY KARYL WALKER Crime/Court Co-ordinator
Friday, December 12, 2008
Three men were yesterday arrested in connection with the theft in July of 500 truckloads of sand from a Trelawny beach after cops from the Organised Crime Investigative Division (OCID) raided premises in the Corporate Area, Trelawny and Negril.
The identities of the men were not released by the police who, in a release yesterday, said they were being processed and interviewed by investigators.
According to the police, two of the men were held in Kingston while the other man was picked up in Trelawny.
The police raided the Corporate Area head office and a Trelawny branch of Bedrock Building and Aggregates early yesterday. Another raid was reportedly carried out in the resort town of Negril in Westmoreland. (continue reading at the Jamaica Observer here)
Thanks to a BFP reader for pointing out these articles. You know who you are and so do we! Thanks, old friend.
18 Comments
December 14, 2008 at 4:07 pm
is azaboik an idiot? the aritcle clearly states it was “bad sand” ie, the sand used in construction of houses and NOT west coast beach sand from barbados.. so what is the point of the article?
December 14, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I never said it was west coast beach sand. Bad sand or good, I want to know where it came from and if government permission is needed to sell it off the island. Simple questions I don’t know the answers to.
HUH??? Do you know?
December 14, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Given the slowdown in building construction which will continue for the next few years, selling sand to help with “cash flow” is a good idea.
We can always buy some from somewhere else during the next wave of construction 3 to 5 years from now.
December 14, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Here we go again. Selling the family silver.
Barbadians must be the dumbest people on Earth.
And the thing is these items are not renewable. When my grand children want sand to build their houses with where are they going get it?
Cap Juluca?
The amazing thing about it is the fact that the DLP just like the BLP is allowing all this to happen?
Why did we bother changing BLP for DLP?
December 14, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Anguilla is just another consumer and Barbados is selling product, builders sand, limestone, cement– I think that you are reading too far into this.
December 15, 2008 at 12:56 am
Can anybody tell me if the Guyanese lady who sublets the Kays House Car Park has permission from Town & Planning for the Container Complex. This place is becoming a shanty town with a sidewalk restaurant, supermarket and a salon. I am not Xenophobic in case Ricky Singh reads this only asking that our way of life and the pride we place in our surroundings be maintained.
I have seen shanty settlements throughout the caribbean and we do not need this type of housing in Barbados. Oh by the way the Guyanese workes in the car park charge $2 for a hour which is even more than City Centre.
December 15, 2008 at 2:37 am
Sand is not in short supply. It can be pumped in unlimited quantities from a few hundred meters offshore. It many countries, annual beach maintenance is a way of life whereby sand is pumped from offshore to build up the beaches for the tourist season.
December 15, 2008 at 2:40 am
Pound Sand, you say Barbados is selling another product.
Who is “Barbados” that is selling the sand?
Is it the actual country of Barbados?
Where did the sand come from? Who owned it?
Is there permission necessary to export sand from Barbados?
What is the law?
December 15, 2008 at 2:44 am
Let’s have some transparency!
December 15, 2008 at 4:18 am
mac that lady has more stores on that same street, on both sides, she rents out most of them and money will buy you many “friends” in government departments.
December 15, 2008 at 8:58 am
We sell our sand.
But St. Lucia sells volcanic stone to COW and Rayside for road construction because Bim coral rock is too soft.
The Canadians sold us granite stone for the airport.
December 15, 2008 at 10:09 am
Do I need a government permit to mine sand for 100 meters offshore? Do I need a government permit to export sand?
December 15, 2008 at 10:49 am
The continued sandmining on the east coast of Barbados destroys important habitats – dunes and coastal scrub – not to mention protection of Belleplaine from sea surges. Sand for mega projects should be imported and we certainly should not be exporting!
http://cavehill.uwi.edu/FPAS/bcs/courses/Ecology/ECOL2453/ecol2453_sc/Sandmining.htm
December 15, 2008 at 1:02 pm
First we were selling all the land under the BLP administration, now we selling what is under the land under th DLP administration.
Will DAVID THOMPSON say to us, “we have bills to pay, sell everything.”
In a country that is 166 sq. miles.
Barbados is full of “geniuses”.
December 15, 2008 at 2:28 pm
All den people had to do is dump the sand on top and get some people to rake it in. The two sand types will inter-mix and form a single uniform colour. Tourists are not seriously going to be grilling the sand.
I think it is safe to say that just about the only thing most tourists care about is if the hand is hot- if they will get their foot scraped on some rocks/sea shells- or if there is litter on the beach.
Some tourists might care about other no physical things like undesirables on the beach, or getting pressured into buying something they don’t want but that doesn’t have to do with the physical state of the beach.
Two thoughts that come to mind.
1) Where does Arawak Cement plant get their sand in Barbados…
2) Barbados ent have it all too bad. Sure it should be monitored so it doesn’t get out of hand. My grandmother used to say. “You taste, and you taste, and you taste; soon you ‘gon taste-way all.”
However, If you think that procurement of sand was bad, anybody ever hear about the mammoth holes dug in the ground in Guyana for the Gold and Bauxite operations and thing?
December 15, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I am pretty sure the sand came from the dredging of the deep water harbour; and while it is white sand, it is not nearly as fine as what we would typically enjoy at a day at the beach. They used 50 truckloads at the party stand at the Oval, and also seeded the new beach at Hythe in Maxwell; and still plenty more where it came from.
December 18, 2008 at 2:07 pm
If what “John DaSilva” says is true why did Anguilla not just pump some of their own sand from offshore onto their beach? While “Sand Lover” seems fairly well-informed he/she was still only “pretty sure” the sand was from the harbour. After all the back and forth in the previous comments, no one has yet given a definitive answer to the question “Where did the sand come from and who got the money for it?” Since we have no private beaches on Barbados then who but the government has the authority to remove sand?
April 6, 2009 at 8:25 am
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