Got TIPS or BREAKING NEWS? Please call 1-284-442-8000 direct/can also WhatsApp same number or Email ALL news to:newsvino@outlook.com;                               ads call 1-284-440-6666
Press Release From Independent Source

HLSCC tests marine water quality in the absence of Charter boat activity

While the world battles COVID 19, Mother Nature gets a rest. HLSCC Marine Director, Dr. Lianna Jarecki, took to the sea while the BVI community remained on a 24-hour curfew to conduct a much-needed water quality study. Photo: Internet Source
PARAQUITA BAY, Tortola, VI- While the world battles COVID 19, Mother Nature gets a rest. HLSCC Marine Director, Dr. Lianna Jarecki, took to the sea while the BVI community remained on a 24-hour curfew to conduct a much-needed water quality study.

With ports closed and boats safely berthed, the BVI’s Ministry of Natural Resources recognized an unexpected opportunity and called upon HLSCC to create a baseline water quality profile for the BVI’s coastlines and anchorages. A study like this has never been done before and will establish reference points from which to measure future fluctuations in near-shore marine water quality.

“This is such a great opportunity for us to monitor and manage marine pollution in the future” stated Dr. Jarecki. “The data is crucial because we are losing so much essential fisheries habitat in the BVI’s near shore waters”

Pollution is just one of the “environmental drivers” that tip the ecological balance against BVI’s ailing marine habitats. Climate change, anchor damage, introduced invasive species, and intensive fishing also directly or indirectly weaken ecosystems. To make effective management decisions, the HLSCC Marine team must first provide a better understanding of the relative magnitude of each environmental driver. However, these drivers are acting all at once, their effects are cumulative, and it is very difficult to measure each of one individually.

With closed ports and a mandatory lockdown in effect for more than four weeks, one environmental driver -sewage pollution- can be studied in much greater detail than ever before.

Sewage in the sea can come from direct sewerage outfall (such as from the Slaney Pt. outfall), from cruising/charter vessel discharges, or from rainwater runoff that washes leachate from hillside septic tanks directly into the sea.

“Right now, no one is cruising the BVI and very few people are overnighting at anchor. Our normally popular moorings fields are nearly empty, so sewage discharge from boats will be minimal or absent. At the same time, typical for April, we’ve had little rain and the ghuts are dry. Sewage from hillside septics won’t, for the most part, be washing down to the sea.” stated Dr. Jarecki. “The only source of sewage in our nearshore waters right now should be from direct sewerage outfalls, and the BVI’s water should be about as clean as it gets.”

When heavy rains return, further water tests can be compared to the baseline that the team is currently creating. Measurement of the impact of hillside septics on near-shore water quality versus that which comes from direct sewage outfall will be conducted. When ports are opened and marine-based tourism resumes, another test can be done on our waters and results can be compared with the baseline profile.

“Without a baseline, we will have no way to detect where sewage pollution is coming from and how much is entering the water” Dr. Jarecki concluded.

6 Responses to “HLSCC tests marine water quality in the absence of Charter boat activity”

  • Interesting (04/05/2020, 14:05) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
    waiting for the results
  • Road Town Pose (04/05/2020, 18:03) Like (1) Dislike (0) Reply
    remember when that sea water by village cay was nice and filled with fish look pon pollution theses days all in the tourism product
  • biker (04/05/2020, 19:38) Like (0) Dislike (2) Reply
    Sorry Dr. Jarecki but your assumptions on sewage from land runoff are incorrect. During this lockdown all the homes and apartment blocks in the coastal zones are discharging more sewage directly into the bays and harbours of Tortola because everybody is home all day and using their toilets more than usual. The ghuts, sewers and road drains stink all day and night because of all this raw sewage running into the sea. This sewage run off problem could have been avoided decades ago if adequate septic tanks were required for all new buildings in the 90's, but they were not. The 3 week lockdown has increased Tortola's coastal sewage pollution NOT decreased it.
    • ? (04/05/2020, 23:52) Like (3) Dislike (0) Reply
      Wouldn't it have been the same if they were at work? unless they hold until back home and I doubt that.
    • Lily Ann (05/05/2020, 07:56) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply

      your statement sounds more sh&tty than the sh*t itself

  • missed the point (09/05/2020, 11:19) Like (0) Dislike (0) Reply
    The point is that this is a rare opportunity to isolate activities and understand the sewage problem. Some people only point their finger at the boats, some people at land. The point is this is a way to gather information and get us closer to better understanding the problem and where to focus and how to improve water quality.


Create a comment


Create a comment

Disclaimer: Virgin Islands News Online (VINO) welcomes your thoughts, feedback, views, bloggs and opinions. However, by posting a blogg you are agreeing to post comments or bloggs that are relevant to the topic, and that are not defamatory, liable, obscene, racist, abusive, sexist, anti-Semitic, threatening, hateful or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be excluded permanently from making contributions. Please view our declaimer above this article. We thank you in advance for complying with VINO's policy.

Follow Us On

Disclaimer: All comments posted on Virgin Islands News Online (VINO) are the sole views and opinions of the commentators and or bloggers and do not in anyway represent the views and opinions of the Board of Directors, Management and Staff of Virgin Islands News Online and its parent company.