Press Release: National Trust for the Cayman Islands Regarding EW Arterial Private Members Motion
May 5, 2023 – The National Trust for the Cayman Islands exists to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the Islands for the people of Cayman in perpetuity. In keeping with this mandate, the organization has taken a clear position that large infrastructure projects that have the potential to permanently alter the islands’ environment should be done in the right way. The recent private members motion in Parliament regarding the East-West Arterial Extension is concerning for its desire to contravene the National Conservation Act (NCA). On a project of the scale of the East-West Arterial Extension it is an international best practice to do an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to better understand the implications of the project before commencing. An EIA looks not just at how the project will impact the natural world but how those impacts will affect the people living nearby. This allows those building the road to have the best information available to mitigate potential problems caused by the road to the community and the natural environment. Without a proper assessment, there is the risk of impacts from the disruption of any number of natural processes. The risks include potential catastrophic flooding of communities south of the road, the slow drying out of the mangroves to the north of the road, impacts to the freshwater lens, and other effects that cannot be foreseen without proper study. An EIA also looks at the holistic impact of development surrounding a project, meaning the more information Included in the assessment the more likely it is to accurately predict potential impacts. Studies include costs, methods and materials (such as the source of aggregate needed), and other tangential issues that otherwise might be obscured from the public’s knowledge prior to construction. This section of the road would directly pass through land that the National Trust holds for the people of Cayman and has the further potential to impact several of our historic and environmental sites through indirect and cumulative impacts.
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