Friday, 28th November 2008
Għadira project will not protect beach
If, instead of coming up with a project that will continue to ruin the little countryside we have left, the government were to look around and observe how other countries have reclaimed land from the sea, the new Għadira road would not be needed at all.
For example, about six months ago I was watching a documentary on National Geographic illustrating how engineers had built the World Islands and the Palm Islands in Dubai, and how they managed to protect these engineering feats from the forces of the sea.
The two "islands" were reclaimed, built entirely of sand dredged up from the bottom of the Arabian Gulf. The sand was compacted to reduce the risk of loss to erosion by the sea. As the documentary explains in great detail, this was not enough because, if not properly protected, major storms in the region would totally wipe out these islands. Therefore a breakwater had to be built. Under the contract signed between the government of Dubai and the construction consortium, it had to be built using the same sand that went into the islands. It also needed to be streamlined with the water surface and not exceed a certain height so that while serving as protection, it would not be an eyesore.
After conducting laboratory studies and experiments to find the exact shape and size required, the engineers came up with a state-of-the-art breakwater design to ensure that the two mega-projects would not be wiped out by a major storm or be eroded by the sea over the years.
This is the sort of thinking that Għadira needs. It would be useless to expand the bay inland as this would do nothing to protect the beach from the forces of the open sea.
Whatever it decides, I hope that the government takes more professional advice.
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Comments
What you might not understand is this. The road in question was not built by nature but bulldozed by man. It has done nothing in protection of the environment around it and neither the sandy beach. What the environmentalists are fearing is change. They've been used to this road all their life and all they are focusing on is the destruction off some other land further away from the present road. They are not at all thinking of the good that should come out by removing the old road.
The old road is bang on the beach, seperating the valley from the beach, surely not as nature intended it. its like building a 4 lane motorway bang on Ramla l-Hamra. I am sure the environmentalists will accept that, rather then a road next to Ulysis Lodge...because the parellels are there! I am very much an environmentalist, but not a die hard one, that once I uttered a word, be it right or wrong I will close my mind and sail forward. This is what the other environmentalists are doing on thos potential project. Will they tell us if they view the present road as a help to the_beach?
Beach "nourishment", heavily marketed by the dredging industry and its consultants, is a starvation diet. The mining of channels and offshore sand also alters currents and, offshore, removes storm protective shoals. The steeper nearshore profiles further accelerate erosion. Once done, the shoreline must usually be refilled on ever increasingly short periods sometimes within months of the earlier project.
To date, I have discovered only one method of mitigating shoreline erosion with any long-term credible documentation of success, environmental soundness and sustainability: Holmberg Technologies (www.erosion.com). Holmberg's permanent, passive systems work with natural forces and indigenous sediments to halt erosion and induce accretion. This method has over 30 years of evidence --university studies, engineering reports and actual projects-- to attest to this success.
Given the environmental destruction caused by such poorly considered projects, wouldn't it be prudent to work with nature to preserve habitat, both natural and manmade.
QIS MIT DARBA U GHAQTA DARBA ( MEASURE A HUNDRD TIMES BEFORE YOU MAKE THE CUT).
I am an environmentalist at heart but I am not the sort that puts spokes in the wheels of every proposed project. I firmly believe that removing the old road will prove to be beneficial to the beach (and also the nature reserve, which as I understand it, the new road will be further away from it then the old road presently is).
Do some of the people objecting to removing the old road have business interests? We cannot judge the sanity of removing the old road based on business interests only.
As I looked at the photo on top of Mr Borg's letter I couldn't help but thinking how beautiful Ghadira Bay would be if the huge road running through the beach would disappear. Alas, for this to happen, a new road would have to be built which, in turn, would be detrimental to our remaining countryside. As I am not an expert in this subject, I would rather stop there.