[Coral-List] BioClout

[Tom Williams]

Just the Facts and current status

INVEST BAHAMAS  (www.investbahamas.org)
News Briefing ¨C Wednesday, February 8th, 2006 

BEST Still Awaiting ¡®Revised¡¯ Environment Plan for
Guana Cay 

The developers behind the $175 million Baker¡¯s Bay
Golf & Ocean Club development on Great Guana Cay began
work on their project with supplying the Government
with a ¡°revised¡± Environmental Management Plan
(EMP). 

An affidavit filed with the Supreme Court on January
30 by Donald Cooper, who manages the Bahamas Science,
Environment and technology (BEST) Commission,
acknowledged that San Francisco-based Discovery Land
Company had ¡°satisfied most of its concerns¡± with
regard to the 585-acre project. 

But he added: ¡°However, the BEST Commission still
awaits receipt of a final design for the proposed golf
course that would minimize or eliminate any ecological
risk associated with current design, and a revised
EMP.¡± 
The Tribune Business Section Pg.1B 

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The referenced current EIA and EMP is available - 
Passerine at Abaco EIA (bakers_bay_EIA.pdf).

The EIA does not adequately or hardly at all deal with
the coastal-intertidal and subtidal (corals, etc.)

The EMP deals with education, monitoring, and
reporting (the softs); not on protection, enforcement,
mitigation, and compensation for marine effects (which
I believe would generally be considered as significant
and thereby require physical mitigation).