Sewage Operations Threaten Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary And Wetlands

Submitted by Greame Hall Nature Sanctuary

Graeme Hall Swamp

[Bridgetown, BARBADOS] According to officials at Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary, the emergency sewage pipe and outfall from the South Coast Sewerage Treatment Plant facility to the sea has been effectively abandoned and is not operational, threatening the biodiversity and operation of the Sanctuary and Graeme Hall wetland.

Inspections last week confirmed continued silting of the Emergency Discharge Canal Structure outfall at the bisecting canal and an inoperative sluice gate at Worthing Beach. The approved Emergency Discharge Canal Structure was completed in 2003 to direct emergency sewage to the sea when needed by the three (3) million gallon-per-day South Coast sewage facility.

In sharp conflict with the originally approved operation of the facility, during emergency operations the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) manually bypasses the Emergency Discharge Canal and pumps sewage directly into the wetland. The Sanctuary and the wetland continue to accumulate contaminated sludge from this and other source points outside the wetland.

Time To Ask The Hard Questions About CSME

Submitted as a comment by Ecoanalyst

Let us stop making this a political football that aims at revising history and making the BLP blameless for the present situation…. It is not a question of political blame BLP vs. DLP, but rather the political parties reflecting the majority will of the people. We still have to decide whether CSME is good for Barbados, notwithstanding the statements of the politicians over the years .

The key issue is how rapid immigration will affect the voting patterns of the country if immigrants are allowed to vote. The party encouraging immigration stands to benefit if there is not a backlash by the majority. That fact may have lost the BLP many votes last year.

Last year 12% of the Barbados registered voters were immigrants. In Antigua’s last elections 24% of the voters were immigrants. For this reason the issue of immigrant voting rights and their effect on national elections is of paramount importance in both of these islands.

CSME as theorized means one country, one economic space, one currency; one Central Bank one economic policy; many countries with reduced control over economic and social policies. The eight OECS countries have the most developed structure in this regard… Maybe that is why Trinidad wants to join them.

Time To Transform The Sugar Industry

Submitted by Ready-Done

Ethanol Distillery

Sugar cane was king in Barbados from the beginning, however the preferential treatment sugar received is no longer a reality, but the industry’s infrastructure is still present, still no one with the authority seems to want to make a definitive decision as to how to progress the sugar cane industry. The value is no longer in the sugar but now in the sugar cane, to let a whole industry go to waste is such a shame when few well spent dollars can go a long way towards making the sugar cane king again.

In retrofitting the Barbadian sugar cane industry rather than letting it run to waste, everyone benefits, the first cry was for farmers to diversify to other food crops and stop planting sugar cane, while ‘diversifying’ is the answer, to stop planting sugarcane is not. The removal of any established industry is not wise. The decline in value of sugar is not from internal forces, and should serve as a reminder to all that it is best for Team Barbados to be as self sufficient as we can be. The diversifying should be done with the products that we get from sugar cane. We should focus on products that can be consumed locally and maintain or increase the value of the sugar cane crop. They are many alternative products but the two worth perusing are bio fuels and bio plastics.

Barbados has no other natural deposit of fuel present capable of meeting the islands need; currently we import US $29 million per year in fuel. Ethanol, which comes from sugar cane, can be used to offset such a large amount of money being sent abroad. Research shows that one dry ton of sugarcane bagasse can generate 80 gallons of ethanol. In 1999, 500,000 tons of sugarcane were produced (not dry). In theory that is between 20-40 million gallons of ethanol we could have produced. What to do with this ethanol? We mix it with gasoline and sell it direct to the consumer.

Free Movement Of Persons In Caricom

Submitted by the Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy

Heads of Government re-affirmed the goal of free movement of persons as expressed in Article 45 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and that free movement is an essential element of the CSME, but given the current global economic and financial crisis, its full implementation at this point in time will be challenging for some Member States;

They recognised that, notwithstanding challenges from time to time, the free movement of graduates, artistes, media workers, musicians, sportspersons, teachers, nurses, holders of associate degrees and artisans with a Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) has generally been implemented satisfactorily.

Heads of Government also re-affirmed that migration is a human right though circumscribed by national law.

Rihanna, What Are You Doing!?!

Oh Rihanna our once beautiful and unspoilt. How are you? Are you feeling fine? Is this what you want? If we were to jot your current circumstance as an equation would it reflect at the output, I am Happy? See the write-up on Rihanna’a most recent wardrobe malfunction. How are Barbadians feeling about Rihanna the youth Ambassador?

Constituency Councils Of Barbados Take Root

Almost like a thief in the night the much discussed and contentious Constituency Councils (CCs) will be given life today at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre at 4.30PM. Recently when asked by a local reporter what are some of his government’s immediate objectives and priorities, Prime Minister Thompson listed the implementation of the CCs high on that list. The governments unswerving commitment to rolling out the CCs has attracted criticism from the Opposition ranks mainly as it relates to structure and process. Renewed criticism has taken root of late based on the cost associated with the rollout of the CC’s in the prevailing economic climate where government resources are known to be  scarce.

This evening 6 CCs will be handed instruments:

• St. Michael North
• St. Michael North West
• St. Philip South
• St. George South
• Christ Church South
• St. James North

BU family members interested in some detail should visit the Constituency Councils of Barbados website.

Commonsense And A Firm But Measured Response By The Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson And His Minister Of Health Donvile Inniss…And Then The Knighted One

Submitted by Yardbroom

Sir Shridath Surendranath "Sonny" Ramphal, OE, OM, GCMG, ONZ, AC, QC, FRSA

An article in the Nation News by Wade Gibbons published 6-29-2009 attributed the following comments to Mr Inniss: “Minister of Health Donvile Inniss disclosed that public health facilities were under mounting pressure as a result of having to deal with the high number of undocumented immigrants. However, he told the Daily Nation that Government would not change its policy of not seeking to know people’s immigrant status before providing them with health care”. The Prime Minister David Thompson had previously made the Government’s position, direction and focus abundantly clear in an interview.

In the many articles now prevalent in the Guyanese Press and other areas, it is unlikely that this report will be given “top billing”. The reason being it does not demonise the Barbados Government enough, and has not got the illegal immigrant being preyed upon component, to wet the appetites of some who denigrate us from abroad. However, facts accurately presented will always reduce the lies and deceit now pedalled into convulsions.

I was pleased with the measured tone used by Minister Donvile Inniss; no “vitriolic exhibitionism” as recently used by a “supposed West Indian heavyweight”, but those words he – the supposed heavyweight – used…will come back to haunt him. A knight errant – in days past – often wandered and sought deeds of courage and chivalry to perform; now we have the “wandering” but alas nothing else with which to engage. The knighted one tried to obfuscate on the ground reality by introducing terminology synonymous with people been burned out of their homes; children being wrenched apart from their mothers and taken away in the night, leaving behind the smouldering embers of their dwellings, and fathers never seen again, having been taken to secluded places.

Was Queen’s College Favoured?

Submitted by GoWEB Blog

Queens College Secondary School

The recently concluded Junior Duelling Challenge is a matter on the lips of most these days. Queens College was a announced the winner in what is unanimously described as an unfair conclusion. Coming out of the semis, the two schools with the highest semifinal scores would go to the final. In the semi-finals, Queens lost so much time, and hence points, that it was impossible for them to make it to the finals. When the other competitor was finished all four of their plates, Queens had not even finished one plate and the time was up.

Actually, they had not even finished cooking when the time ran out, and their competitor handed in ALL four of their plates. Actually, Queens lost so much time, that the public did not even get to see the conclusion of Queens’ presentation. Actually, for the first time this year, we NEVER saw the final plate from Queens and no scores were given. However, it was obvious that Queens had lost too much points to make it to the finals.

Guyana Government Is The Biggest Violator Of Guyanese Human Rights, Not Barbados

Submitted by Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)

President of Guyana Bharat Jagdeo

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo, in his address to the 30th Meeting of Caricom Heads of Government, which began in Guyana yesterday, appealed for the rights of Guyanese to respected by Barbadian Immigration authorities. But Jagdeo himself is not getting a pass from the New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID). The Institute is demanding that Jagdeo heeds his own words.

CGID President, Rickford Burke, said Friday that although he agrees in principle with the Guyanese leader, Jagdeo has no honor on the subject of human rights and must be heed his own counsel. Burke added that “Barbados is not the chief abuser of the human rights of Guyanese – the Jagdeo government is. The lack of respect the Guyana government demonstrates for its own citizens and its mediocre, despotic governance, invite the mistreatment of Guyanese in the region,” Burke observed.”

On May 5, 2009 Barbados Prime Minister, David Thompson, implemented a controversial new immigration policy of deporting undocumented Caricom nationals who entered Barbados after December 2005. Since then, immigration officials have conducted early morning raids on the homes of suspected undocumented Caricom nationals, and have “deported” or “removed” them from Barbados. Guyanese constitute the largest immigrant block in Barbados. Over eighty percent of the Barbados deportees have been Guyanese.

On The Road To Perdition: A Decade Of Distress And Discontent

Submitted by Looking Glass

Another deficit budget is hardly surprising. Given the economic structure and reliance on fickle tourism and construction more deficit budgets will likely continue. The net effect will be to expand the gap between happiness and misery. There is a correlation between public and private debt in a population whose mental set permits lavish consumption and government unrestrained borrowing and spending, moreso when personal saving is insufficient to finance government spending. The inability of governments to generate surplus will result in more debt, drag us deeper in the red and on to perdition.

Our predicament reminds me of Marlow’s Dr. Faustus, a man of learning who, longing to possess the treasures of Nature, sells his soul to Mephistopheles (the Devil) for 24 years. In the last couple decades we sold the country for not much more than a seat at the beggar’s table and the retention of power. Today we are at the bottom of the table, mega billions in debt and the lenders/givers are taking over. Hell has no limits.

The road to perdition (deficits, debt, corruption, unprincipled regimes etc.) didn’t happen overnight. As previously stated, it is not the direct result of the current world financial crisis. Nor is it the consequence of a natural business cycle. Past regimes forewent the exacting standards of fiscal discipline. They forgot that economic prosperity depends on the productivity with which national resources are employed, and indulged in non-income generating and short term employment generation projects. In the process they failed to keep programme spending to real per capita terms, i.e. increase spending by no more than inflation. The current world crisis merely exposed our ‘limitations’ and hasten our socio-economic decline.

Both parties are guilty of, among other things, an absence of smart thinking, moreso the BLP. But it is hypocritical to blame the current administration for the current condition, even though they are guilty of, shall we say, ‘errors in judgment’ and are savvy short.