The ICE report further stated that a tunnel would be more costly than the bridge but its maintenance fees would be less over a long term period while the Government of St. Maarten will be able to preserve the Simpson Bay Lagoon environmentally as well as island's main source of industry: tourism through the marine industry. The Simpson Bay lagoon is the flagship of the Caribbean, all yachts come here before taking off on their journey and dividing it into two or three parts would definitely affect the marine industry.
Constructing another bridge over the lagoon would further destroy the environment since there are already two bridges in the lagoon, namely the Simpson Bay Bridge and the Sandy Ground Bridge on the French side of the island. ICE further stated that constructing a causeway would divide the lagoon into two parts which would eventually impact the marine industry on St. Maarten. However, like every other report, the ICE report on the road infrastructure can be considered incomplete since there were no environmental study conducted prior to them submitting their report to government. ICE stated that the causeway is more cost efficient but somehow they did not include the maintenance of the causeway compared to the tunnel they suggested, neither did they mention the environmental implication another bridge would have on the lagoon.
Sources within government apparatus said that the former Democratic Party commissioners had several drawings made on the causeway they intend to build long before these studies were conducted. "They wanted to build this bridge but they never conducted a study on the traffic, they asked ICE for the infrastructure study and that is how the links such as links 1 to 10 came into being. Government has an inflated plan for this bridge since they did not seek to conduct any technical studies for the bridge. One of the VROMI heads wanted to bring in some professionals from the Netherlands to conduct the necessary traffic studies for the construction of a causeway but government threw the suggestions through the window since their minds were already made up with the construction of the causeway. Basically, deals were already made and they had to be kept. "
SMN News learnt that advisors to the former government suggested that the Dutch and French side should join hands to construct the tunnel since that would allow them to access European funding geared at assisting members of the European Union that has development plans. "When this information surfaced one of the Democratic Party commissioners invented (Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Cooperation (SLAC) to dictate what will happen at the Simpson Bay Lagoon. An investigation was also conducted to see if the European Development Funds would be available for the construction of the tunnel instead of the causeway. "A tunnel will not obstruct the movement in the lagoon and it will also make St. Maarten unique since it would have been the only one in the Caribbean. However, those that held the power were not interested in safeguarding the economy and the environment. Their sole interest is to make money through these projects. They already have intentions to sell the land around the causeway for further development since they intend to link the causeway to link 4 and link 10. That plan was somehow interrupted when one of the commissioners got into legal loggerheads with a well known Cole Bay family for the use of their land to construct a road. "While all of this was in the planning stage, lands were swapped with a businessman in Lowlands and Port de Plaisance. It is there the Dutch Village deal was made for the Harbour," the source said.
The source further explained that the former commissioners were not interested in conducting studies instead they were busy working on projects that will fulfill their own self interests. Another project that got a negative advice from the former head of VROMI was the Ring Road government is trying to construct around the Great Salt Pond. "We already have a Ring Road , the only thing that has to be done is cleaning and proper maintenance but a certain commissioner did not see things this way. That commissioner at the time was only thinking about projects where he could make his money. It was the Dutch Village at the Harbour, Ring Road, and the causeway, having three projects running at the same time would bring more monies into their pockets while the environment and the country's economy would suffer. These projects sparked one of the island council members to ask for clarity on the floor of the island council some years ago about the intended causeway, since he heard certain commissioners were busy making deals off island with investors and the island's people were not even consulted for such projects.
