By Erica James-King, Staff ReporterWESTERN BUREAU:
THE PUBLIC Health Department is alarmed at the state of the Seaboard Street Fishing Village in Trelawny and has deemed the facility a public health hazard, which could lead to the spread of waterborne diseases.
But the department's threat to close down operations at the beach remains a threat because the department is not sure who to serve the notice of closure on. A disagreement between the Fisheries Division and the Trelawny Parish Council over whose responsibility it is to attend to the hazardous conditions at the fishing beach has left the Public Health Department in a quandary as to who it should serve with the closure notice.
LACK OF SANITARY FACILITIES
Seaboard Street beach is being condemned for its lack of sanitary facilities, its channelling of wastewater into the sea and the absence of water and cold storage facilities there. The fish that is sold to the public is washed in the sea. Dogs, pigs and roaches have taken over the facility.
However, eight months after the Public Health Department served written warning notices on the Trelawny Parish Council, urging it to ensure that fisherfolk and vendors who use that beach clean up their act or be faced with stiff penalties; the council has failed to take measures to regulate the activities at the beach.
The council is maintaining that it is the prerogative of the Public Health Department and not its responsibility to ensure proper health standards at that public beach. The Trelawny Parish Council is also insisting that the Fisheries Division is responsible for ensuring that the beach is brought up to the required standards.
Meanwhile, the Fisheries Division is adamant that it does not own that beach and it is the responsibility of the Parish Council to clean up the facility. The debate on who should clean up the beach and who should be served with warning notices has dragged on through the last four consecutive monthly meetings of the Trelawny Parish Council.
"We are in a dilemma, as to who to serve the warning notices on; since the Parish Council and the Fisheries Division have not taken responsibility for the activities at the Seaboard Street beach," Dr. Maung T. Aung, Medical Officer of Health for Trelawny conceded in an interview with The Gleaner Friday.
BLAME GAME
While the blame game continues, the Public Health Department is cautioning members of the public that their health is in jeopardy if they bathe or buy things at that beach, since the facility is contravening health and water quality standards. Noting that Falmouth is below sea level and pit latrines in the town are often flooded by seawater, the health department explains that when it is low tide, the faecal matter from the latrines flow back into the sea, and can contaminate fish being washed in the seawater for sale to customers.
"The council has now called for a stakeholders meeting to discuss the problems at that beach, so we are hoping that the problems can be resolved as soon as possible," argued Dr. Aung.
In the meantime, conditions seem to be improving at the Half Moon Bay Fishing Beach in Falmouth which was recently given a failing grade by the health department. The beach which was used by both bathers and fisherfolk had shown high levels of water contamination from sewage.
"The Falmouth Gardens Sewage plant had some structural problems and so for years it had been leaking untreated sewage into the Half Moon Bay beach," bemoaned Dr. Aung. The MOH says repeated tests of the water had shown excessively high coliform bacterial levels, which could cause illness for people using that water.
