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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Cap-de-Ville erosion continues despite $40 million project

by

2070 days ago
20191109

Cap-de-Ville res­i­dents are call­ing on the Min­istry of Works to com­plete a $40 mil­lion Shore­line Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Project soon to ar­rest rapid ero­sion of the coast­line be­hind their homes.

Al­ready four hous­es have fall­en in­to the sea with­in the past decade and the sta­bil­i­sa­tion project is ex­pect­ed to pro­tect 35 more hous­es.

How­ev­er since the project start­ed in De­cem­ber 2018, res­i­dents say the ero­sion has in­ten­si­fied in some ar­eas.

At Seav­iew Dri­ve, a chunk of the road­way has col­lapsed in­to the sea, along with sev­er­al trees. Pipelines were seen pro­trud­ing out­wards to the ocean while trees bobbed in the wa­ter.

Res­i­dent Criss Ram­nath said the rocks used to sta­bilise the shore­line have been dis­lodged by the force of the waves.

“We are thank­ful that the gov­ern­ment start­ed do­ing some­thing but a lot of what they did al­ready is washed in­to the sea,” Ram­nath said. the shell of an aban­doned house stood near the shore­line.

Ram­dath said dur­ing the high tides the wa­ter cas­cades over the rocks and en­ters the res­i­dents’ prop­er­ties.

“We are com­ing up to Christ­mas time and the high tides does get re­al­ly re­al­ly bad,” Ram­dath ex­plained. An­oth­er res­i­dent Ja­mal Ram­nath said some res­i­dents have al­ready lost their cesspits and parts of their homes.

“It af­fect­ing peo­ple re­al­ly bad. Men cesspit go­ing away in the wa­ter, house flood­ing, house­break­ing down and men boat mash­ing up,” Ram­nath said.

An­oth­er res­i­dent said dur­ing high tides the sea­wa­ter comes all around her home.

“The wa­ter brings with it a lot of rub­bish. We have pieces of sticks and garbage com­ing up in the wa­ter,” she added. The res­i­dents are call­ing for re­lo­ca­tion say­ing even when the shore sta­bi­liza­tion project is com­plete, they will not be safe in their homes.

The post of­fice which once stood in the coast has long dis­ap­peared and res­i­dents have been de­vis­ing their own meth­ods of sta­bil­i­sa­tion us­ing old tyres, sand­bags and grav­el to ease the im­pact of the pound­ing waves on the vul­ner­a­ble shore­line.

In De­cem­ber last year, the Crit­i­cal Coastal Pro­tec­tion Pro­gramme start­ed the Shore Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Project to save the homes. At the time, di­rec­tor of the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit Can­dice Gray-Bernard said the sta­bil­i­sa­tion works ex­tends for 1,000 kilo­me­tres and will be com­plet­ed next year. She al­so ex­plained that the Cap-de-Ville project was one of five projects cur­rent­ly in progress.

“We have two projects in Man­zanil­la. An­oth­er at San Souci on the north­east coast and in Matelot we are ad­dress­ing two sites as well,” she added.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said he was un­aware of the com­plaints of the res­i­dents. He said he will in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter and is­sue a com­ment.


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