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Gun Boat Beach – closed but still inhabited 

By Andrea Downer , Freelance Writer

Kingston , 05 March 2006 (Panos) - Gunboat Beach was once the beach to go to in Kingston. For over 20 years it has been closed to the public. However, it is still home to a small community of fishermen.

The beach lies hidden in dense undergrowth on the harbour side near the main road leading to the International Airport in Kingston. Ten fishermen live in the crumbling building that used to be the toilet facility and changing rooms.

“ The beach was closed by the Beach Control Authority at the National Resources and Conservation Authority, NRCA, because it was found that there was a large amount of raw sewage in the water. This led to high levels of coliform bacteria,” said John Maxwell, former NRCA head, veteran journalist and University Lecturer.

Sixty-one year old Althy, one of the fishermen, said he had not heard about the beach’s closure from any “official” source, but admitted reading about it in the newspaper.

The wizened fisherman, fresh from a dip, said he has been fishing at the beach for 40 years, but he has only been living there for a year. Squinting his eyes in the harsh glare of the midday sun, he gazed out across the harbour and scoffed at the idea that the water might be harmful to him.

“It doesn’t affect me. I have been in it some 35 years and it no do me nothing,” he stated with conviction.

However, his confidence wavered briefly when he was asked what made him certain that the water did not affect him.

“Really, I should feel some skin rash or something, but that don’t trouble me,” he said, while explaining that maybe he had not gotten any rashes because he bathed with piped water after swimming in the sea.

But Peter Knight, Director of Environmental Health at the Ministry of Health argues that if there is a high concentration of feacal matter in the water, then persons who swim, wade or ingest it would be exposed to health risks.

“Ingestion of the water could result in diseases such as typhoid or gastroenteritis,” Mr. Knight said.

Between 1992 and 2004, thirty-eight water samples from the Gun Boat Beach were tested. Seven samples had excessive counts of feacal coliform, he said.

“A very low reading was recorded in November 2004, which shows that the water is almost pure,” Mr. Knight said. However, he was unable to say if the water is now safe for recreational and leisure activities, such as swimming, diving, fishing and sailing.

“I cannot say if it is safe, as the Ministry of Health does not have an intense sampling programme. What exists now is more random testing,” he explained.

Can the beach be restored?

But scientific standards for pollution do not mean much to Althy. He insists that he and others from the neigbouring communities of Rockfort, Harbour View and Bull Bay , are much more concerned whether the beach can be restored to its former glory.

“ As far as I see, the people not interested in that. What the people want is when they come they see a good building with running water and things like that.” he stated firmly. “I know people who come here, who know that the pollution is there, but they still swim in it.”

For Althy, whatever pollution there is, results from housing development and industrial waste.

“Ten, twenty years ago, there were not so many housing schemes near the harbour, with sewage draining into the sea.” He added that the industrial factories surrounding the harbour, deposit industrial waste into the harbour through secret outlets.

But these allegations were discounted by several of the factories.

“I don’t think that is entirely true. I think major contributors to the contamination of the Kingston Harbour are sewage from a treatment plant at Greenwich and gullies that empty into the harbour,” said David McKenzie, Compliance Manager for Environment and Safety at Jamaica Flour Mills, one of the factories near Gun Boat Beach. He said that his company disposes of waste properly.

“Our solid waste goes to Riverton and our sewage is contained at the plant, then drawn and disposed of periodically,” he said.

Robert Taylor, Environment Advisor at Cool Petroleum Products, (formerly Shell Co (W.I.) Ltd. says his company does not contribute to the pollution in the water. “Cool has always been committed to protect and preserve the environment and will continue to do so,” he stated.

A report by WHO presented in Geneva in 1999, titled “Protection of the Human Environment, Water Sanitation, and Health Series”, states that beaches that are close to urban areas are often subject to pollution due to sewage and industrial discharges, combined sewer overflows and urban runoff. “ Combined sewer overflows and sanitary overflows usually occur as a result of excessive rainfall…and can result in high human health risks for certain beach zones…” the report stated.

Another fisherman, 45-year-old Delroy Flemmings said he has been living on the Gun Boat Beach for three years but that his connections go way back.

“My great-grandfather used to work here before dem close di beach,” he stated.

Delroy says he likes the beach because it is secluded and quiet. Like Althy, he said many people from communities close to the beach still go to swim, especially on weekends and public holidays. Both men said they catch fish in the water, which they sell to the public as well as cook and eat. This despite the fact that Althy said that, on more than one occasion, he had seen fish floating in the water, apparently dead from the pollutants in the water.

“It kill all the fish sometimes and we know say a that ‘cause it. It kill the fish dem definitely, mi know that,” Althy stated, a wry smile creasing his weathered face. He said the fish population at the Gun Boat Beach had dwindled significantly over the years.

Mr. Knight confirmed that polluted waters could produce fish tainted either by pollutants in the water or by the persons who handle the fish transmitting the pollution.

“Fish is food and if you are fishing in water that is highly polluted then there is always a possibility that the product is contaminated,” Mr. Knight stated.

However, he said there is no way that he could determine whether fish caught at Gun Boat beach is either contaminated or a carrier of bacteria.

He disclosed that levels of contamination at the beach is likely to be higher during periods of heavy rainfall which would carry pollutants from gullies, rivers etc. and dump them into the sea.

The WHO 1998 report recommends that “Where there is clear evidence that water quality varies at certain predictable periods, such as following significant rainfall events, it may be possible for local management to undertake….interventions that would reduce public health risks.”

Mr. Knight admitted that there are deficiencies in the government’s current beach monitoring programme. He said while public swimming pools are monitored by the Ministry of Health once per month as stipulated under the Public Health Swimming Pool Regulations, beaches are not tested as often as the ministry would like.

“Ideally the water quality of the island’s beaches should be tested every month at random times,” he disclosed.

“The Ministry is trying to scale up its recreational water quality testing programme in conjunction with National Environment and Planning Agency, NEPA, and Water Resources Authority,” Mr. Knight stated.

He said the three organizations are contemplating a joint sampling and monitoring programme.

“We just concluded discussions in late January 2006,” Mr. McKnight stated.

The Caribbean Environment Programme, (CEP) of the United Nations has proposed that a regional programme be established to monitor recreational water quality and other issues related to coastal pollution. Under the programme, a regional standard of water quality testing and monitoring would be developed and used by all countries in the region.

Mr. Knight said a sign of closure should have been posted at the Gun Boat Beach advising the public not to use it.

Efforts to find out from NEPA, which agency ordered the beach closed and what plans were put in place to secure the property, were unsuccessful. Although a representative of the agency did say that the file with information on the beach’s closure could not be located.

Based on information from the Jamaican National Heritage Trust’s website, t he Gun Boat bathing beach and recreation park was opened in 1955. It was the intention of the Palisadoes Development Committee that when the beach was opened it would provide beach and garden facilities. Those hopes have long been dashed. But many people, including Althy and his nine neighbours, stubbornly refuse to turn their backs on the now forlorn beach. While the tall columns of the factories that border the bay’s arc, belch plumes of smoke irreverently into the sky, they continue to earn their living, ease their sorrows, take refreshing dips in the waters of Gun Boat Beach and reminisce about the days when the beach held pride of place in eastern Kingston.