Dear Editor,
Earlier this week I carried out one of my regular tours through the different neighborhoods on Sint Maarten to review and measure the extent of the environmental challenges the island faces. When I make these, often twice monthly, visits I usually run into interesting situations. This week was no different as while I was walking along the Great Salt Pond in the Sucker Garden area, across from the landfill, I stumbled upon a gentleman happily fishing for Tilapia in the Pond right next to a gutter filled with sewage and garbage.
During our brief conversation the gentleman informed me that he caught tilapia in the pond to cook for and feed his family of five with on a weekly basis. He did not seem at all alarmed when I pointed out that the waters of the pond are polluted and fishing in it for consumption purposes was likely not a very good idea. In fact, his response, before hurrying off with his Tilapia, was that if the pond was indeed polluted Government would have long done something to solve the problem. I am hoping the gentleman in question reads this brief article and changes his mind about eating fish, or anything else from the Great Salt Pond.
The management of solid-waste on Sint Maarten has been a topic of concern and discussion for decades. Land-filling, our current form of waste disposal is not only unsightly and bad for the environment; it is a very serious and often neglected health concern for the island's residents and many visitors.
Allow me to take landfill fires as an example. Although the frequency and size of landfill fires may have somewhat decreased over the past few years, fact is that they are still too prevalent and have long-lasting consequences. Landfill fires, big or small, release fine ash containing substances with cancer causing abilities and as such pose both immediate and long-term health risks to people exposed to the smoke, gases and toxic fumes. The situation regarding Sint Maarten's landfill is further exasperated by the potential leakage of pollutants from the landfill into the Great Salt Pond, connecting waterways and ultimately the ocean.
Landfill fires often result in the emission of dioxins; these types of emissions are of particularly serious concern because of their toxic characteristics and potential to surface as organic pollutants in the food chain. Dioxins do not biodegrade and can have adverse affects on various vital organs.
International research has shown that dioxins and other substances often released during landfill fires accumulate in the tissues of animals such as fish and bio-accumulate in the food chain. Bioaccumulation is the increase in concentration of a substance along the food chain; a toxic substance is emitted from a source (the land-fill) and is deposited in (in this case) the Great Salt Pond, algae and other tiny organisms absorb the toxins and are then eaten by small fish which are in turn preyed upon by larger fish. As the toxin is transferred up the food chain its concentration can be enlarged through bioaccumulation by thousands of times. The larger fish are eventually caught and eaten by other animals or by humans, potentially exposing them to large amounts of toxins which will accumulate in their bodies as well. This does not necessarily lead to immediate ill health but will very likely have health effects in the long-term.
The aforementioned is just one example of how the state of the environment affects the well-being of Sint Maarten's Citizens. Years of disregard for environmental issues by successive governments has given rise to a considerable amount of very serious human health hazards.
Current decision makers have over the years repeatedly used public funds to finance a wide-range of extensive studies into ways of resolving Sint Maarten waste-management challenges, yet none of these projects have been carried-out.
Resolving Sint Maarten's waste management challenges and thereby addressing serious human health concerns is amongst the causes I will continue to champion if elected to Parliament on August 29th, 2014.
Please consider visiting and liking my page at www.facebook.com/thompsonsxm where I will be regularly posting my thoughts on where St. Maarten should be headed.
Moving forward positively,
Rueben J. Thompson
Environmentalist
Candidate # (4)
United Sint Maarten Party
