The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) has de­fend­ed the Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) is­sued for a ho­tel de­vel­op­ment project in To­ba­go, which fol­lowed a re­view process un­der the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Act and the CEC Rules.

It comes af­ter Rocky Point Foun­da­tion founder, Du­ane Ken­ny, and res­i­dents from the area raised con­cerns about pos­si­ble en­vi­ron­men­tal harm to the area with the build­ing of a new ho­tel.

In a me­dia re­lease on Mon­day, the EMA said the ap­proval iden­ti­fied as CEC6451/2022 in­volved tech­ni­cal analy­sis, con­sul­ta­tions with agen­cies, sub­mis­sions from stake­hold­ers and a re­view by a com­mit­tee made up of agen­cies and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

The Au­thor­i­ty said the re­view ex­am­ined hy­drol­o­gy, ma­rine ecol­o­gy, drainage, waste­water man­age­ment, coastal process­es, light­ing, ar­chae­ol­o­gy, cli­mate re­silience and so­cio-eco­nom­ic mat­ters.

The EMA said it did not re­ly on­ly on com­mit­ments con­tained in the En­vi­ron­men­tal Im­pact As­sess­ment re­port sub­mit­ted for the project. It said the re­port was ex­am­ined through a Re­view and As­sess­ment Re­port process dur­ing which com­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions from agen­cies and or­gan­i­sa­tions were in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the ap­proval con­di­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the EMA, the orig­i­nal EIA pro­posed a coastal set­back of about 3.5 me­tres in some ar­eas. How­ev­er, af­ter as­sess­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions from the re­view com­mit­tee, the ap­proved de­vel­op­ment now in­cludes a 30-me­tre coastal set­back, an ad­di­tion­al buffer and mea­sures to pre­serve veg­e­ta­tion along the coast­line.

The Au­thor­i­ty said con­cerns about runoff car­ry­ing soil, sed­i­ment and pol­lu­tants in­to wa­ter­ways and coastal ar­eas were al­so as­sessed. It said the ap­proved de­sign in­cludes a re­ten­tion pond and a stormwa­ter man­age­ment sys­tem to man­age rain­wa­ter runoff.

The EMA said the is­sued CEC con­tains con­di­tions re­quir­ing ero­sion and sed­i­ment con­trols, phased land clear­ing, rain­fall in­spec­tions, runoff man­age­ment mea­sures and ma­rine wa­ter qual­i­ty mon­i­tor­ing dur­ing con­struc­tion and op­er­a­tion.

The Au­thor­i­ty said Con­di­tion 3.10 of the CEC re­quires mea­sures to pro­tect coral reefs and the ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment, in­clud­ing con­trols on waste­water dis­charge, set­backs from the high-wa­ter mark and man­age­ment of earth­works dur­ing rain­fall.

The EMA al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about sea tur­tles and nest­ing habi­tats. It said Con­di­tions 5.3 and 6.5 re­quire tur­tle-friend­ly light­ing, re­stric­tions on con­struc­tion dur­ing nest­ing pe­ri­ods, beach ac­tiv­i­ty con­trols and mon­i­tor­ing pro­grammes through­out the project.

Ac­cord­ing to the EMA, the en­vi­ron­men­tal da­ta used in the as­sess­ment showed ex­ist­ing wa­ter qual­i­ty ex­ceedances in the sur­round­ing ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment be­fore the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment.

The Au­thor­i­ty said the is­suance of the CEC marks the be­gin­ning of its over­sight of the project through com­pli­ance mon­i­tor­ing, in­spec­tions and re­port­ing re­quire­ments. It added that the EMA re­tains the au­thor­i­ty to take reg­u­la­to­ry ac­tion if breach­es are iden­ti­fied.

The EMA said it re­mains avail­able to re­spond to ques­tions from mem­bers of the pub­lic and stake­hold­ers re­gard­ing the ap­proved de­vel­op­ment and the con­di­tions at­tached to the CEC.