National Trust moves to protect Pigeon Island during 08 hurricane season
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Contact: Claudia Monlouis
Friday, June 20, 2008 – The Saint Lucia National Trust is bracing early for the onslaught of this year's hurricane season. Having suffered a serious bashing from Hurricane Dean last year, the National Trust has wasted no time rounding off an intense rehabilitation programme and post jazz clean up activities ,to concentrate on implementing its disaster plan.
Director of the National Trust Bishnu Tulsie said the Trust is grateful for all the assistance provided by donors responding to its calls to mount the recovery project.
He said the government of Saint Lucia was very instrumental is sourcing some one hundred thousand EC dollars, from the government of Taiwan; one hundred thousand Canadian dollars, from the government of Canada ; and fifty thousand US dollars from the European Union, making available an adequate amount of just over a half million EC dollars to undertake the recovery project.
Mr. Tulsie said at this point only the Coastal Stabilization Study is still outstanding. The preliminary estimate for implementing the remedial and other recommendations, he said, stand at three million dollars.
“Well Hurricane Dean did deal us a severe blow last August and we have done a lot of work in terms of the recovery. The jetty was destroyed and we built that with assistance from the Govt of Taiwan. We also received assistance from the Canadian government to redo the road network and the general clean up of the area, but the long term concern we have is the long term erosion caused by these storms,” he said.
Mr. Tulsie added that the Coastal Stabilization Study will hopefully provide some analysis that will help the Trust address ongoing erosion along the coast of the Pigeon Island National Landmark.
“The idea is to find some solution for the erosion, and what can we do to prevent the loss of the shoreline. That work is ongoing. We expect the consultants to finish the study in another three months but already we understand that they will be looking at things like additional groins, may be submerged rock beds, that sort of thing,” said the SLNT Director.
Should a storm hit Saint Lucia, he said, it is inevitable that Pigeon Inland would become a casualty in nature's path; however, he said the intention is to do all what is humanly possible to minimize the impact.
“We have also prepared a draft Disaster Management Plan, which will guide the staff and the council on how we respond to disasters. We're doing that in collaboration with NEMO so a number of things are being put in place,” Tulsie said.
The Saint Lucia National Trust is the body charged by government via a lease agreement to manage and care for the hugely popular historical site. |
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