FRUSTRATED RESIDENTS of Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth again took to the streets yesterday to protest against the failure of the authorities to effect badly-needed improvements to the community's infrastructure.
The demonstrations did not last long, however, as the police quickly intervened by detaining the leaders of the growing protest movement in the usually docile South Coast community.
George Deleon, president of Citizens Alert Group of Treasure Beach, was one of two organisers detained by the police.
"We were accosted by the police near 5 o'clock and placed in a holding area and given a lecture, to desist from such actions on the street and have dialogue with our MP and the National Works Agency," Mr. Deleon told The Gleaner. "But we told them that such efforts have failed."
The Treasure Beach residents have been petitioning the Government to fix two main problems: the main road, which was badly damaged by recent hurricanes, and the flooding of the ponds by heavy rains mainly during the hurricane seasons.
The National Works Agency (NWA) has been given the task of constructing a canal to drain excess water from the largest pond in the community, Great Pond, to the sea.
The residents are demanding, however, that the five other ponds be linked to the canal as well in order to achieve a comprehensive solution to the problem.
The latest promise from the NWA is that work will start on the canal within weeks.
The flooding problem in Treasure Beach became a matter of national concern last October when more than a dozen families from Great Bay and Calabash Bay were forced to flee their waterlogged homes.
The NWA also gave a commitment to commence work on the road earlier this week, but failed to deliver on that promise.
