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Sun and surf... but, hey, where is all the sand?
San Juan (Puerto Rico): Sand in the coastal Caribbean beaches is disappearing at alarming rates as thieves feed a local construction boom.
Caribbean round grains, favoured in creating smooth surfaces for plastering and finishing, are being hauled away by the truckload late at night. On some islands not much bigger than Manhattan, towns and ecologically sensitive areas are now exposed to tidal surges and rough seas.
In Puerto Rico, thieves once mined the dunes in the northern coastal town of Isabela, said Ernesto Diaz of the department of natural resources. But now they are stealing the beaches of the tiny island of Vieques—52 square miles where the US military only recently halted its controversial bombing practice.
Among the hardest hit is Grenada, where officials are building a $1.2 million seawall to protect the island. Large sand thefts have exposed north coast towns to rough seas, said Joseph Gilbert, the minister of works and environment.
One of the region’s largest sand thefts targeted Jamaica, where nearly 100 truckloads were swiped from private property in the northwest, exposing mangroves and a limestone forest to wind and waves.
Roughly 706,000 cubic feet of sand were taken in July, enough to fill roughly 10 Olympic-sized pools, said Jamaica mines commissioner Clinton Thompson, who suspects government officials were involved.
On Grenada’s 13-squaremile Carriacou island, population 6,000, the beach is shrinking by 3 linear feet every year from illegal sand mining, Gilbert said. If caught, thieves face light fines and jail time that critics say are unequal to the crime. Grenada, for example, imposes up to $190 in fines, less than the cost of a single load of sand. AP
Caribbean round grains, favoured in creating smooth surfaces for plastering and finishing, are being hauled away by the truckload late at night. On some islands not much bigger than Manhattan, towns and ecologically sensitive areas are now exposed to tidal surges and rough seas.
In Puerto Rico, thieves once mined the dunes in the northern coastal town of Isabela, said Ernesto Diaz of the department of natural resources. But now they are stealing the beaches of the tiny island of Vieques—52 square miles where the US military only recently halted its controversial bombing practice.
Among the hardest hit is Grenada, where officials are building a $1.2 million seawall to protect the island. Large sand thefts have exposed north coast towns to rough seas, said Joseph Gilbert, the minister of works and environment.
One of the region’s largest sand thefts targeted Jamaica, where nearly 100 truckloads were swiped from private property in the northwest, exposing mangroves and a limestone forest to wind and waves.
Roughly 706,000 cubic feet of sand were taken in July, enough to fill roughly 10 Olympic-sized pools, said Jamaica mines commissioner Clinton Thompson, who suspects government officials were involved.
On Grenada’s 13-squaremile Carriacou island, population 6,000, the beach is shrinking by 3 linear feet every year from illegal sand mining, Gilbert said. If caught, thieves face light fines and jail time that critics say are unequal to the crime. Grenada, for example, imposes up to $190 in fines, less than the cost of a single load of sand. AP
PARADISE LOST: A sea wall, constructed to prevent erosion caused by large-scale sand theft, is under construction at River Antoine in Grenada as sand in Caribbean disappears at alarming rates
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