Dear iNews Cayman Ltd.

As a Seven Mile Beach property owner for 32 years, I am extremely troubled and concerned about the DART organization’s plans to remove more than 1000 feet of submerged rock fronting a property where it hopes to build a hotel.

Disturbing anything on The Seven Mile Beach poses great danger to the entire precious beach from George Town to West Bay. Disturbing something as essential to the integrity of the beach as the underlying rock is probably the worst disturbance one could inflict. There is no doubt that removing the submerged rock put there by Mother Nature will result in a change somewhere else along the Seven Mile Beach. Imagine if DART was proposing to remove a piece of the foundation supporting your house – would you let this happen?

Hydraulics and sediment transport work the same everywhere on earth. If you change the way water and earth interact, the water will move things around into a new equilibrium. Some places will end up with more sand, other with less. It is impossible to predict what will happen where.

But it will be hard for other Seven Mile Beach landowners (especially those with less money than DART) to maintain the current conditions they have come to rely on and enjoy in their beachfront property. If DART’S project is allowed to happen, it cannot be undone. And DART will be the only winner.

At the very least, the Department of Environment must require that an EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) be performed to fully evaluate the damage that the proposed rock removal will cause to the surrounding environment. However, as helpful as the EIA may be, the assessment must be conducted by an independent entity so that critical data and findings are not obscured to advance the project. A DART led assessment, even by scientific contractors hired by DART, would at best be viewed as a conflict of interest, and at worst deliberately skewed to favor the project.

The Cayman Government will no doubt be influenced by the US$600 million in “economic impact” that the DART organization suggest will accrue to the Cayman Islands because of their project. But what about the future and the economic impact on the entire Seven Mile Beach? Will DART be required to monitor and pay for all future beach erosion and related impacts potentially linked to their destructive project? If not, who will be on the hook to cover what could easily amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in damage in the coming decades?

I encourage all Seven Mile Beach property owners, hotel operators, condominium owners, private residence owners, and all Cayman Island residents and government decision makers to join forces and demand that the Cayman Island government say NO to the DART rock removal!

Robert L. Tompkins
Boggy Sand Road
West Bay