If anyone could possibly still have entertained doubts regarding the seriousness of the continued pollution of Simpson Bay Lagoon, Saturday’s front page photo should have removed them.
After all, it came after a February 21 warning concerning harmful algae bloom at the other end of the lagoon where a lot of untreated wastewater runoff from the mixed residential, commercial and semi-industrial area on land ends up in the inlet that has also suffered from the removal of mangroves and other vegetation along its shores due to development.
This was in turn followed by news in mid-April that the well on Narrow Road in Cole Bay had tested positive for e-coli bacteria, indicating contamination of the groundwater. In other words: the writing was very much on the wall.
Nobody likes to beat a dead horse over and over, but the long-awaited joint Dutch-/French-side sewage plant for which funding from the European Union (EU) was even approved had been intended precisely to prevent this problem from getting worse. It was shelved once several proposed locations were dismissed for variety of reasons, despite a director already having been selected in 2016.
At the end of April this year State Secretary of Home Affairs Raymond Knops suddenly stated he was optimistic about the project that would be discussed with the World Bank, which manages the Dutch-sponsored Trust Fund. Nothing more was heard since, but as preparations are taking place for a so-called quadripartite between the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of France, St. Maarten and the Collectivité of St. Martin this fall, there is hope that the wastewater purification facility can finally be realised soon.
Minimising the pollution of the lagoon that is so important for tourism and particularly the yachting sector is a no-brainer in ecological, public health and economic terms. Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Miklos Giterson would do well to provide the public with an update on the status of this matter that has now obviously become more than urgent.
