Residents are outraged and seeking answers by the continued removal of vast amounts of sand from Foxes Bay Beach.
The photos are from the beach today, which clearly show the sand being collected and put into trucks belonging to a local company.
Discover Montserrat has learned the sand is being stored for shipping out by barge over the weekend.
“They should take sand from Trants and other places, not our beach,” one resident said. “Foxes Bay is now our largest beach and we should take care of it.”
Another resident said they’d never known of this amount of sand being removed because of turtle season. The fact that turtle season has already begun, they question the timing of the sand removal.
Hon. Minister of Lands and the Environment Claude Hogan said Tuesday the sand removal was part of a project to make the beach more accessible for turtles which visit the island annually to nest.
Over the weekend residents were being urged to write the minister and other government officials about removal of sand from a public beach.
Lawyer Jean Kelsick has already written to Minister Hogan and Her Excellency the Governor Elizabeth Carriere about the removal of sand from Carrs Bay beach in a similar manner over the past several weeks.
The removal of beach sand is a direct cause of erosion along many shorelines. It is very damaging to the beach fauna and flora, ruinous to beach aesthetics, and frequently causes environmental damage to other coastal ecosystems associated with the beach such as wetlands says coastalcare.org.
