Earth Today | GraceKennedy Foundation moves to restore health to Kingston Harbour
WITH NEWS of pollution levels that now rule out swimming at Kingston Harbour, and which put human health at risk, the GraceKennedy Foundation is looking to marshal collaborative action to see the world’s reputed seventh-deepest natural harbour rid of contaminants.
“It is much bigger than us and it is not a short-term project, either,” noted Caroline Mahfood, executive director for the foundation, of the harbour’s pollution that has, for years, made news headlines.
“There is a cultural change that needs to take place, there is behaviour change that needs to take place. There has to be proper systems in place for the collection of garbage and so on. But we think there is momentum in place to try to solve this problem, and we believe that it can be a model for other harbours,” she added.
As such, Mahfood said that, informed by the more than 70 studies done on the harbour over the years, various other interventions, and with input from stakeholders, a concept note had been crafted with the goal to help to stem the tide of pollution at the harbour, which holds significant financial value to Jamaica.
“GraceKennedy is not funding a project. What we have done is created a concept note that we can send out to potential funders. The next step is to work out the funding for a project like this. Our goal is really to connect people, funders, agencies, and to drive the process as much as we can. That is the role that GraceKennedy is trying to play,” she explained.
Mahfood’s statements come following the warning from respected marine scientist Professor Mona Webber of the higher levels of contamination being seen at the harbour, which, in addition to nutrient pollution, has also been compromised by “incidental releases from industrial facilities on its periphery from incidents such as oil spills and chemical spills”. Discharge of ballast water, oily waste and garbage from ships have also reportedly contributed to its pollution. The result is that the harbour is not only unsafe for swimming, but also for fishing.
The warning, meanwhile, was sounded at the recent GraceKennedy Foundation lecture, which this year focused on the topic, ‘Clean Kingston Harbour: Pipe Dream or Pot of Gold’.
“The main aspect of the lecture was to focus on the fact that Kingston Harbour is still in a poor condition. There has been some improvement in the sewage inputs … the Soapberry Sewage System did have a tremendous (positive) effect,” noted Webber, who was in 2016 appointed the GraceKennedy James Moss Solomon Senior Chair in Environmental Management at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.
“But it is our belief, based on the algal blooms we continue to see in the harbour and where we have seen high algal concentrations, like near Gun Boat Beach, that it (the pollution) is now coming from a formal sewage treatment system; it is coming from the gullies. The gullies are also transporting the plastics, which are also very visible,” she added.
“The overarching deduction is that the contamination of this particular water body and many others is a social and cultural issue that contributes to how poorly we are handling our disposal of waste. So it could be informal settlements, it could be deliberate inputs by groups we don’t know of, but it means our treatment and handling of waste needs to be fixed,” Webber said further.