Myths and Fact on the Long Mountain project
Paul Bourne, BSc. (Hons.)
INTRODUCTION
Topology of typology - Jamaica
Eastern Jamaica represents extremely steep and rugged topography with the crest of the Blue Mountain Range reaching 2254 m within about 10 km of the coast. Landscape in eastern Jamaica is geologically young (Quaternary). It is seismically most active part of the island and appears to be undergoing geotectonic uplift. Watersheds are relatively small and steep. Rivers flow through steep canyons onto alluvial/debris fans before emptying into the Caribbean Sea. With the exception of alluvial fans, flat areas are rare in the parishes of Portland, St. Thomas, and Upper St. Andrew. Communities have settled on fans and development activities are hindered by a lack of flat land. Landslides are common and are perhaps the most widespread hydro geologic hazard on human timescale causing land degradation thus affecting land productivity. Bedrock structure strongly influences slope stability. Landslides preferentially occur in locations where the direction of dip of bedding in the shale and sandstone sequence daylights in slope faces. Landslides occurred both in the landscape modified for human use as well as on slopes under dense forest cover (Rafi Ahmad et al (2004) from the Departments of Geography and Geology)
Rafi et al went on to state that, “The vulnerability of Jamaica to geohazards is primarily due to inherent physical conditions arising from geologic, tectonic, and geomorphic factors. The island lies within a 200-km wide, seismically active zone of Neogene left-lateral strike-slip deformation that defines the central section of the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates (Mann et al., 1985).” They continued that, “It is located in the track of north Atlantic hurricanes passing through the Caribbean. The present-day topography on the island has largely resulted from crustal movements during Quaternary (Horsfield, 1974). The highly fractured and deeply weathered and altered bedrock and neotectonics control the landforms and geomorphic processes to a remarkable extent. Slope instability is notable throughout the island. These factors are well known and the resulting vulnerability can be forecast, however, case studies during 1986 to 1995 show that the costs of rehabilitation and reconstruction have increased in the wake of natural disasters (Ahmad, 1995; Carby and Ahmad, 1995).”
Kingston, the capital of island is situated on the Holocene gravel fan of Liguanea at the base of a faulted mountain front. This speaks to a ring of low hills of Tertiary limestones (Long Mountain, Dallas Mountain, and Stony Hill) borders the fan. Overlooking those geographic localities do the Port Royal Mountains (of St. Andrew) comprise Cretaceous to Paleogene rocks of the Wagwater Belt. Rafi et al contended that, “Lead-zinc-copper mineralization occurs at several sites within the Belt. Notable among the industrial rocks and minerals are vast reserves of gypsum and limestones.” “According to Mann & Burke (1990), the Wagwater Belt of eastern Jamaica formed as a transverse intra-arc rift and it appears that the uplift and doming of the sediments in the trough is a consequence of compression at a right-stepping bend on the thoroughgoing, left-lateral Enriquillo-Plantain Garden-Swan fault system which forms the southern part of the plate boundary zone.” (Rafi et al, 2004).
On Long Mountain, then, is it safe to carry out blasting which will displace rocks of an area, which is already on fragile topology? Answer- The openness of the island to geohazards is mainly due to natural physical conditions arising from geologic, tectonic, and geomorphic factors. Jamaica lies within a 200-km wide, seismically active zone of Neogene left-lateral strike-slip deformation that defines the central section of the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates (Mann et al., 1985). According to Rafi et al, it is located in the track of north Atlantic hurricanes passing through the Caribbean. They concurred that “the present-day topography on the island has largely resulted from crustal movements during Quaternary (Horsfield, 1974). The highly fractured and deeply weathered and altered bedrock and neotectonics control the landforms and geomorphic processes to a remarkable extent. Slope instability is notable throughout the island.”
Summary of the environmental profile of Kingston and St.Andrew (KMA)
In the arguments forwarded to this point Long Mountain, which is located in Kingston and St. Andrew, is known to be within a particular topological position in Jamaica and by extension in the Caribbean. Let us remind you of this fact, the city of Jamaica (Kingston) is located on the Holocene gravel fan of Liguanea to which at its base is a faulted mountain front where a ring of low hills of Tertiary limestones (Long Mountain, Dallas Mountain, and Stony Hill) borders the fan.
Geologists argued that, “Lead-zinc-copper mineralization occurs at several sites within the Belt. Notable among the industrial rocks and minerals are vast reserves of gypsum and limestone.” Hence, why the present afoot in the construction of dwellings for humans on Long Mountain? Is the contamination of Long Mountain with buildings a political and economic decision verses an environmental decision within the context of sustainable development?
Management of the Environment
The management and the effective balancing mechanism of the economic, social and environmental factors are not simply a mathematical technique to which the solution is either calculus or any other statistical technique. But, it is a continuous drive to harmonize man’s needs for survival, self-esteem, self-actualization, warm, a place to residence, the need for wellness and other social facilities; while synchronizing those demands with the reality and capacity of the environment with the understanding of not reducing future generations’ consumption of the same quality space.
This harmonization of environment in the past (prior to the 1980s) was not done within the understanding of sustainable development but solely economics. In that, man would seek to consume as much of the environment without the comprehension that his/her future is inextricably linked to the environment. With the every expanding Westernization of the Caribbean and more so Jamaica, there is a growing need for commercial activities, social arrangement, dwellings, and facilities that are continuously demanding more of the environment.
Urbanization is one of the tools of Westernization. This phenomenon results in more and increasingly more of the use of the limited lands to which characterized the Caribbean. On the other hand; Pollution, deforestation, the destruction of wildlife, the watershed and the natural forestry are just a few examples of the rape of the land and by extension reducing the qualities of the land for future consumption by today’s man.
Many advocates of urbanization blindly purport that this new phenomenon is modernity and development. As such, their views over the years up early 1990s have been the dominate position believed and utilized by governments in planning. This belief brought about a remarkable and unprecedented depletion of the ozone layer, solid waste problems, pollution – air, land and sea; ecosystems mismanagement, depletion of quality water supply, the increase in respiratory diseases and depletion of much of the environment to which man relies for survival. Those issues have resulted in the birth of institutions like Greenpeace and old institutions like the World Bank adopting and instituting measures that governments around the world will need to implement in order to alleviate environment issues.
Old institutions like the United Nation and World banks were not volunteers in the fight against environmental problems but it was a difficult struggle for those organizations to join the team advocating as they are today for sustainable development. Within the context of the insistence of many environmental watchdogs groups, advocacy over the years through their methods in marketing have enhance people’s awareness of the numerous ecological hazards that are likely to destroy the environment. The issue of sustainable development within the reality of the negative environment implications of global warming, climate change, pollution, the depletion of the ozone layer, and the negative consequences of water borne diseases and problems of food supply and quality environment for man’s consumption is a mammoth task for ecologists. The materialist foundation has been set on the agendas of influential institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nation to address the balance between environment and economics but some countries continue to adhere to their own devices and mechanisms.
Now that the World Bank Grouping of institutions have been involved with this new thrust on their agenda, they have been able to institute policies that are seeing more and increasingly more countries no longer being able to arbitrarily use solely economic costs-benefit analyses in decision making but issue of sustainable development.
While it is true that people have an insatiable appetite for consumption of goods and-or services than demands more of the environment, when an environmental audit is used it must be of materialist value in decision making and not be felt solely political and economic managers. The demand and supply of dwellings close to the urban centres is becoming increasingly more burdensome for political and economic managers in light of sustainable development.
Deforestation, degradation of the watersheds, the removable of natural wildlife and the displacement of rocks are becoming increasingly a reality in the Caribbean experience given the fact of limited land space, so much so that we are seeing more and more blatant rape of the environment.
Westernization which is termed urbanization in places such as Flanker, St. James; Portmore, St. Catherine; Mona Planes, St. Andrew and the ‘New Long Mountain housing development’ opposite the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies cannot be continued across the island despite the need for housing because of the environmental impact of such decisions. In that, the ecological degradations must be priced, understood within the position of sustainable development and their negative implications on global encroachment. That is, there needs to be a balance between the environmentalists’ and the economists’ viewpoints otherwise only the economists’ thought will benefits and not man to which it is designed in the first place.
Disposal of domestic sewage is a serious problem throughout the Caribbean. Raw or partially treated human or animal waste is routinely deposited in many areas. In Aruba, the pollution of ground water by sewage effluent is one of the factors that have necessitated the use of expensive desalinated water (Archer 1988).
In 1991, approximately 10 per cent of the population of the Caribbean was served by a centralized sewer system (Vlugman 1992). This statistic would have increased in the more recent past with the implementation of or extension of municipal sewerage systems in the major urban areas. Pit latrines were the main focal waste disposal system utilized in the Caribbean up to the 1980s, and they are still the main method in use along with pail closets in rural areas, particularly where running water is not available. Individual septic tanks and soak away serve much of the remainder of the population.
Packaged sewerage treatment plants accompanied the advent of planned residential developments, resorts and industrial estates in the 1960s, but because the systems are poorly maintained, they tend to malfunction or become altogether non-operational and consequently deliver raw sewage into ground and surface water. Hotel plants are known to discharge untreated sewage into inshore waters throughout the region (often from inoperative treatment plants); with destructive effects on coastal wetlands, coral reefs and sea grass beds.
In 1991, approximately 13 per cent of 138 plants surveyed in the eastern Caribbean were found to be nonfunctional. Twenty-five per cent were considered to be efficiently operated, while 36 per cent were operated only moderately and 22 per cent were operated poorly (Vlugman 1992). Adopted effluent quality criteria were not being met by 75 per cent of the plants surveyed by Vlugman in 1992.
Pollution of land and water by sewage is a major public health hazard in several Caribbean islands, where low absorbability sub-soil conditions and high groundwater conditions prevail. In densely developed coastal areas such as Kingstown in St. Vincent and Basseterre in St. Kills, the height of the water table limits the absorptive capacity of the soil and heightens. The risk of sewage pollution of coastal waters is evident in the Caribbean during the large-volume discharges.
In a number of islands, outfall pipes have been damaged or destroyed by hurricanes and rough seas, and consequently pipes discharge raw sewage onto beaches and inshore marine areas (Archer 1988).
The problem of faecal contamination from land-based sources is compounded when yachts discharge raw sewage into the water. This is a particular concern where coral reef systems are involved. Reef and beach ecosystems in southern St. Vincent and southwestern Tobago are under stress from.
The past two decades have seen the increasing industrialization of some states. Paint manufacturers, food processors, metal works, petrochemical industries and battery manufacturers all generate toxic and hazardous solid and liquid wastes in increasing quantities. Facilities for the safe treatment and disposal of these wastes are severely limited. Waste is frequently stored on factory sites or vacant lots, disposed of in municipal dumps, or discharged into rivers with little or no treatment Inappropriate handling of lead wastes has caused the contamination of numerous sites and resulted in cases of acute lead poisoning in children Jamaica and in Trinidad and Tobago.
Surface waters are routinely utilized as receptors of untreated process waste effluent. Only 39 per cent of 140 small industries surveyed in 1995 (UNDP/ CARICOM Regional Sewage Disposal Project) undertook some degree of wastewater treatment. Approximately 64 per cent of the total wastewater was discharged into the coastal zone, sea, or surface water; 25 per cent was discharged into the ground (including soak away systems); 6 per cent was released into public sewers, and 4 per cent was utilized for crop irrigation (Sammy et al. 1995). These disposal practices were linked to unpleasant smells, water discoloration and reduced fish catches, and imposed health risks on users.
NATURAL and MANAFACTURED DISASTERS
The distinctive geological feature of the Caribbean is the Caribbean Plate, which underlies most of the Caribbean Sea. The movement of this plate relative to the surrounding coastal plates creates a halo of earthquakes and other tectonic activities that reveal the shape of the plate and the geological processes occurring around its periphery. Stresses along the eastern part of the northern boundary of the Caribbean Plate have caused uplift and subsidence,
AN OVERVIEW OF MIGRATION PATTERNS IN JAMAICA
According to Goldsheider (1998) migration is the “detachment from the organization of activities at one place and the movement of the total round of activities to another.” That is, people who move from one place to another while changing their usual place of residence are migrants. This definition, however, excludes people who move from one place to another without changing their place(s) of abode. This includes vacation travelers and people whose jobs necessitate traveling from one place to another.
The categories most frequently used in the studies of migration distinguish between moves across international boundaries, (that are from one county to another international migration) and move between different places in the same country (that is internal migration). For example, a person who comes from Barbados to live in Jamaica here is called an immigrant. On the other hand, a person who leaves Jamaica to reside in Barbados is called an emigrant. Previously, those situations are within the scope of international migration (that of, emigration and immigration), whereas, internal migration speaks specifically to the changing of ones place of abode within the same the same geographically defined border. A typical example is an individual who removes from Southside, Kingston (irrespective of specificity of address) to reside permanently in Flanker, Montego Bay, St. James, Long Mountain, St. Andrew or from Caroni to St. Patrick in the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago.
A component in the population dynamics of any country is external migration. However, both internal and external migrations are important components of population change. External migration has been a major contributor to the reduction in population growth. Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago like other countries in Caricom are affected by internal migration in terms of the predominant rural to urban drift. External migration or the permanent change of residence from the country to another affects the population redistribution and change. Geographic mobility has played a major role in the distribution and redistribution of humans on the surface of this planet.
The internal and external movements are largely influenced by imbalance in the development process and associated push and pull factors. The process of immigration and emigration influences migration rate. Immigrants to Jamaica and the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago may include returning residents, deportees, Commonwealth citizens and aliens.