St. Vincent-Government and Canadian company close to agreement on dredging offshore

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KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – St. Vincent and the Grenadines government says it is “close to the end game” with a Canadian company regarding the construction of the EC$600 million (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) port in Kingstown.

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said construction would include an agreement to dredge sand offshore Argyle International Airport (AIA).

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Gonsalves said his government and Aecon had moved closer to a deal allowing the company to dredge 1.2 million cubic meters of material from the seabed near AIA.

However, he said the final approval would depend on the findings of a bathymetric survey of the area proposed for dredging rather than using proxy data as Aecon had initially suggested.

“The bathymetric study has been completed of the particular area and where Aecon wants to take the material, the sand, the fill material,” Gonsalves told a press conference on Thursday.

“And the subcommittee of Cabinet with all of the technical persons have met. Due to the results from the bathymetric study and other technical analyses, they have recommended a conclusion and a finalizing of the agreement between ourselves and Aecon.

“They have sent all the relative data which have been gathered to the planning authorities, the Physical Planning authorities,” Gonsalves said, adding that he is hoping to receive a draft copy of that agreement sometime as soon as possible “so that Cabinet can have a preview of it and to say whether we approve the terms of it in the manner in which it is drafted so that we can get the particular matter forward and behind us and get on with what we agree upon.

“We are getting close to the end game. So, I thought I mention that in terms of the agreement,” Gonsalves added.

In his newspaper column on January 27, social commentator and attorney Jomo Thomas wrote that the permit allows Aecon to dredge 1.17 million cubic meters of sand from an area 820 yards south of and 550 yards out from AIA.

But Gonsalves, speaking on a radio program earlier this month, said that “there have to be appropriate negotiations with those things and with all the conditions attached to it, some of them, which Planning puts forward.”

He noted that he had initially said that the government was not satisfied with Aecon in how it addressed “the whole bundle of issues” concerning the possible dredging offshore AIA, including its handling of environmental issues.

Gonsalves said that because of the issues, Marty Harris, the senior vice president of Aecon, flew out of Canada and held discussions with senior government officials here on March 9.

He said Aecon later sent a letter agreeing that they would conduct a multibeam bathymetric survey of the area to be dredged at least two weeks before the commencement of any dredging activity.

Gonsalves said that Aecon had previously relied on statistical inferences based on data collected nearby and at other places in St. Vincent and Grenadines rather than at the site proposed for dredging.

He further said that the company had agreed to pay EC$20 million for the material, adding that while he had not disclosed their initial order, it was one million EC dollars.

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