There will be a community meeting:

6pm - [tomorrow] August 13th Thursday
Location: TB Womans Center on Old Wharf Road

Supt. of Police and NWA, NEPA (and other bodies) will be there to discuss crime, canal and other important issues concerning all residents of Treasure Beach.

Please try and attend if you possibly can.
And pass this along to anyone you can think of who would like to attend.

I hope enough folks can attend as this is very last minute notice.

Look at it as an opportunity not a hasty gathering.

The town hall meetings in our N backyard are not to be emulated.

All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small look forward to a good report.

Even the duppies are curious.

I hope someone will post information / minutes from this meeting. I would be so interested to hear what is discussed and what (if any) answers to questions are provided. I wish I could be there to hear it all for myself.

Hi Treasure beach resident and stake holders
G.T.B/C.A.B.S
Commonly known as “citizens alert group of Treasure Beach”
Invites you to their general monthly meeting this Thursday 13th instant 2009 @ 9:00 pm as the Treasure beach women’s centre, old wharf road Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth.
1. Guest speaker in the form of an assistant superintended of police a superintendent and an inspector of police to make a high powered presentation on the anti-crime plans for treasure beach and it environments.
2. Guest speakers in the form of technical experts and environmentalist from
(a) The national works agency(NWA)
(b) National environmental planning agency (NEPA)
(c) National water resource authority (NWRA)
(d) Jamaican heritage trust

I hope someone reminded the representative of The Jamaica National Heritage Trust that Taino artifacts and probably burials abound in TB. And beyond.

Treasure Beach is an important early Taino site.

Every time the earth is broken, anywhere but certainly concentrated in certain areas bits of pottery, beads and stone axes or petalloid celts show themselves. There are probably Spanish and English period artifacts too.

Apart from getting the support of The Trust, I encourage the schools and interested individuals to appreciate and learn from these messages from our old people.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=M33aOoslSTMC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=zemi+british+ museum&source=bl&ots=1OHo_JwTaP&sig=_c4OHPCePbWKT5_mJf2yZaKtxpU&hl=en&ei=0qiESq_ mG4SCsgPa_a2tBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=zemi%20briti sh%20museum&f=false

Sorry about the long address and thanks Leslie-Gail.

Treasure Beach, National Park and Ecotourism Capital.

Under the Stewardship of residents and friends.

Please not a 9 for a 6.

The canal - please tell us what happened with that. Did they say when it would be completed? Did they say what would happen in case of a bad storm until it got finished? Did they give assurances the canal would protect that section of TB?

I rushed from one engagement to this meeting so I was not prepared to take notes. In a nutshell the NWA said all is set and ready for them to start the beginning of September once the budget is approved. I don't recall them giving us a completion date. If a bad storm occurs before the completion they are prepared to open the wall of dirt currently separating the pond from the canal.

A NEPA representative was present and said NEPA has approved the plan.

If someone who attended the meeting took notes, I would much appreciate you elaborating on what was said last night.

Thanks

The meeting must have been coordinated far in advance to allow JCF, NWC, NEPA and JNHT representatives to attend.

Why were the most important players, the residents and friends of Treasure Beach, given less than 24 hours notice?

I'm glad it happened. Maybe the community could organise a meeting where the residents, friends and all relevant orgs are given sufficient notice. The press should be invited as TB and it's development is newsworthy.

Glad I'm not in Myanmar where my question would probably not please the controllers.

We don't have controllers, right!?

and than all the mud goes first to calabash bay and than the storm surge funnel the seawater to Great bay-wonderful

At the community meeting the NWA representative said they will start Phase 2 of the canal in early September, however when asked if the budget for it had been approved, he admitted it had not!

They plan to keep it as a big open cemented culvert and put a fence alongside it.

It will be ugly, impractical, and outrageously expensive.
The completed canal is expected to cost JA$75-80 million.

There was an assessment done by Smith Warner which has proposed a less expensive and more aesthetic solution. Whether it will be accepted by the NWA, NEPA and the other government bodies, is left to be seen.

Engineers alone should never solve these kind of problems. They should be working with the environmental agencies to make sure that not only is something practical and designed to do the best job possible, but it should also be suitably designed for the environment it is going to be in.

It is strange to think this much money is being spent needlessly on a canal this size, when we do not have water in our pipes half the week.

Turey, these Citizens Alert Group of Treasure Beach (G.T.B/C.A.B.S) meetings are regularly scheduled the second Thursday of every month though meeting dates have been known to change. But people forget and people don't always show up unless it's for something they feel strongly about like the one that was about the seaplanes. I agree a meeting as important as this where the Citizens Alert Group worked so hard to get good outside speakers on such vital issues needed to be announced way in advance.

I am still waiting for someone besides Rebecca to report what happened at the meeting. From what I know the NWA doesn't have money to get to the next stage - meaning #3 out of 5 - of the canal so they can't make any construction promises. Rebecca reported the NWA said if a bad storm occurs before the completion of the FIVE stages they are prepared to open the wall of dirt currently separating the pond from the canal. I find it hard to believe the NWA will head to TB to do this work if a storm is threatening no matter what they said at the meeting.

In all fairness, the meeting last night was the regularly scheduled monthly Treasure Beach Citizen's Alert Group meeting which is ALWAYS on the second Thursday of each month. Anyone interested in becoming a member of the group or attending meetings should mark your calendars.

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Ana became the first named storm of the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season today, while Tropical Storm Bill has formed in the far eastern part of the ocean, the National Hurricane Center said.

As of 5 p.m. New York time, Ana had maximum sustained winds of about 40 miles (65 kilometers) per hour, and was about 805 miles east-southeast of the Leeward Islands, where the Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic, the agency said in an advisory.

The storm is moving to the west at about 17 mph, and an expected turn toward the west-northwest may put the center of the storm near the islands on Aug. 17, with a possible U.S. landfall on the southeastern tip of Florida early on Aug. 20, according to a National Hurricane Center forecast.

It has been 25 years since the first storm of this intensity has developed so late in the calendar year. In 1984, a subtropical storm emerged on Aug. 18 and the first named storm formed on Aug. 28. By Aug. 15 of last year, six named tropical storms had formed in the Atlantic.

The latest tropical storm, which has been named Bill, is about 820 miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Maximum sustained winds are about 40 mph, with some strengthening forecast, and the system is moving west at about 16 mph, the agency said.

A storm is named once it has sustained winds of 39 mph or greater, and it becomes a hurricane when winds strengthen to 74 mph. The Atlantic hurricane season lasts from June 1 to Nov. 30.

Thanks Pond and Meetings, glad to hear the Citizens Alert Group meetings are happening regularly. This is an important part of TB's future.

Look forward to extraordinary meetings being announced to the wider community at the same time the presenters and special guests confirm their attendance.

To me the engineer only approach is a result of our educational systems which usually focus individuals on specialised areas which they become the experts in when they graduate and work in their field.

Not many can digest the information needed to become an expert generalist or polymath. Thus cooperation between disciplines is often needed. Being human, pride in the exclusivity of our small kingdoms may be a factor in inhibiting our specialists working together.

I'm not suggesting that all are prima donnas but hope that more individuals and their orgs reach out to their fellows when co consultation is needed.

The there is $ and the awarding of contracts. The stickiest wicket.

Here are some polymaths that can inspire us.

http://www.fact-archive.com/encyclopedia/List_of_polymaths

HI everyone,
I was saddened to learn of the community meeting re the canal with a day's notice given. I haven't seen many details of what was said at the meeting from those there - just a few statements that the work will commence again in September once the money can be found, and that NEPA had approved the plan. It seems that the less damaging proposals will not be undertaken and the people of TB will have to live with this eyesore and risk to the environment. Even if fenced - I myself doubt this will happen, and even if it does happen, the fence may soon be breached - the canal will very likely be used as a dump, as happens all over Jamaica. When it rains, whatever is in the canal will end up in the sea. I don't know what else to say, really. I wish I had known of the meeting.

Diana from JET

Any more news on the canal? We have escaped any hurricanes SO FAR, but it is not even yet September. This is scary.