THE DECAY OF MARACAS BAY - 2003

THE DECAY OF MARACAS BAY

Story and photos by MARK MEREDITH

Trinidad and Tobago Sunday Express, 2003

ON WEDNESDAY morning the clouds settled black and lowering on the mountain slopes above Maracas Bay. At Annette’s Bake and Shark Rishi Singh was busy digging a small trench from the base of the family’s vending hut to the drain that runs parallel to the road before emptying into the Maracas River.

Glancing anxiously up at the approaching downpour, he muttered: “Is every day I doing this.” His channel was one of many examples of do-it-yourself drainage. A series of small trenches had been cut among the knee-high weeds in the sand behind the row of beach vendors’ huts, forming a lacework delta of murky water it was hoped would escape to the drain.

But when the rains at Maracas come, and the tide is high and the river full, everything that is supposed to go down to the river comes back up. Dark liquid spills back up the channels from the main drain, out from the waste tanks buried in the sand by each

vendor’s hut to form smelly lakes which flood into their kitchens, ruining appliances, attracting insects, making mud, driving away customers.

Beach vendors at Maracas Bay say it is two years since the sewage treatment plant worked properly. Along the pavement of dangerously uneven concrete slabs there are gaps. Look through the gaps into the drain and you will see a lumpy brown sludge passing beneath your feet on its way to the river and the sea. A similarly distasteful cargo can be viewed in a channel just behind the western perimeter of TIDCO’s carpark.

When the sewage is not flooding sand, vendors or carpark, it drains to the river. There it meets the motherlode. TIDCO have said they will clear the mouth of the river "to alleviate the problem." It is a futile gesture. The river, itself, is Maracas Bay's biggest problem.

In 2002 Samaan magazine commissioned environmental experts to test the bathing water quality at our premier beach. At the lowest reaches of the Maracas River, where it meets the sea and is carried by the tide up the beach, the bathing water was found to be heavily contaminated with human waste.

In the river itself, concentrations of faecal coliform, enterococci and E-coli were found to be nearly 400 times above acceptable standards laid out by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The acceptable standard for enterococci is 35 CFUs. At the low reaches of the river by the sea the count was found to be 12,000 CFUs. Near Maracas village it read 4,000 CFUs.

After periods of heavy rain the very large toilet that is the Maracas River is flushed taking with it the contents of an entire village, squatter settlements, the beach, and the run-off from surrounding agricultural areas into the bay, turning its famous blues a murky brown.

Samaan’s investigation found that the beach bathing areas between the rivermouth and the western groyne, and eastwards to the main lifeguard station were most heavily polluted, the latter area being the worst. Sunday limers avoiding TIDCO’s car park charges here could find this a false economy.

Disease causing microorganisms in sewage like that which surrounds Maracas Beach from south and west can be responsible for gastroenteritis, salmonellosis, hepatitis, diarrhoea, dysentery, cholera, vomiting, abdominal cramps, digestive disturbances and many more.

The authors of Samaan's report list a number of recommendations to improve Maracas Bay's health. The first, and most important they say, is for a sewage plant to be built upstream for Maracas Village. The sewage plant for the beach would need to work, too.

The unhealthy side of Maracas Bay is not apparent to the average visitor. It lurks in the river, drains, puddles and soggy sand, invisible in the shallows where our children play.

But for anyone who cares to open their eyes, like the tourists TIDCO is so eager to attract, the neglect of Maracas is plain for all to see.

An air of forlorn dilapidation and anarchy hangs over this once proud and beautiful beach.

The powdery sands, held in place by the old car park wall, have blown away with wind and rain or drained into the river. Hard stones, forgotten lumps of concrete and shards of

glass lie in wait for bare feet. Slowly dissolving, soggy huts offer protection only if you are prepared to stand ankle deep in water.

Stray dogs slink between vending huts, from garbage pile to garbage pile, curling up in the shade of TIDCO’s decaying Seaside Pavilion in rooms and alcoves spread with garbage, stained by dark pools and unpleasant odours. A piper’s paradise, perhaps; a vagrant’s mansion, maybe; but a “pavilion by the sea”?

Pick your way through the weeds, mud and garbage and cross the road to TIDCO’s potholed carpark. Despite averaging 250 to 380 cars at $10 per car each Sunday for many years, it is in a sorry state and a health hazard.

Areas are filled by black puddles with smelly brown, sometimes green, slime that beachgoers have to negotiate to reach the sands. But not always. People are, unsurprisingly, ignoring the carpark altogether, parking on the road creating congestion and, lately, on the famous Maracas sand itself, even under the palms by the sea. The car park TIDCO once removed is returning.

Constable Ruis at Maracas Bay police station said TIDCO were responsible for the situation. If TIDCO ask them to act then they can do so, he said. There is no law against parking on the beach so they, the Police, cannot do anything about it.

Nobody, it seems, wants to do anything about Maracas Bay.

It is this that has caused the mild mannered vendors of bake and shark on the beach to demonstrate their dissatisfaction to the authority charged with managing Maracas. The vendors, after all, are one of the beach’s biggest draws. People drive the North Coast Road sometimes only for their bake and shark.

In a letter to TIDCO President Brian Harry — in which they protest “the gestapo methods” employed by TIDCO contractors — they bemoan the “disgrace” of Maracas and their struggle for survival, citing the garbage, dogs, flooding, sewage system, and leaking, broken huts for which they cannot afford to pay rent:

“Day after day for years it has been a struggle. Most of the time we have to throw away our flour, shark and vegetables because we do not get enough sales. While we are throwing away our goods the vendors in the car park are making thousands of dollars a day . . . These vendors are able to put up tents, tables and chairs which attract even more customers. But our plight is not against the car park vendors, but against TIDCO itself.

We want to be able to pay our rent and support our families. Some of us have been vendors for over 30 years. Ever since the car park was built everything has changed. We are desperate TIDCO, we demand that you help us!” they wrote.

The vendors want TIDCO to build a car park off the lay-by extending into the beach just beyond the line of their huts. Their drainage would be improved, they say, and they would increase sales. They add that it would bring more money to TIDCO as it would attract those currently parking by Maracas Bay Hotel and illegally on the road.

It seems a reasonable request. The area in question is bestrewn with weeds on an unpleasant surface of stained sand that like the area of the vending huts attracts biting insects. Cars are using this gateway as a thoroughfare to the “new” car park beneath the palms. The vendors’ plea for this second car park has been ignored. TIDCO are building a

barrier in the road of the lay-by, narrowing it, and blocking access to any future car park for the embattled bake and shark chefs.

On that sullen wednesday last week, following a TV6 news item on the vendors’ plea to Brian Harry of TIDCO, a contingent of senior public health officials descended suddenly on Maracas Bay. The problems were pointed out to them by the vendors. They said they would put a report together.

One official told a vendor that “there were proper channels in which to highlight their complaints”. That demonstrating was not the way. He was asked what other way the vendors could have attracted the attention that had now suddenly, belatedly, arrived. He had no answer.

The Public Health Department claim to regularly visit Maracas making food safety visits.

But, up until last week they had not found the clearly inadequate sanitation surrounding the huts to be a cause for concern.

The authority designated to manage Maracas is TIDCO. They employ five un-uniformed workers at $55 a day to maintain all Maracas Bay. Messages left with TIDCO’s President Brian Harry requesting an interview on TIDCO’s management of Maracas went unreturned last week.

The state agency’s “economic and intelligence unit” has predicted that up to 90,000 jobs can be created through tourism by 2020. They have been running an advertising campaign promoting their branding of T&T and its “Vision 2020”. Among the aspirations of their marketing department is the goal of Trinidad and Tobago being among “the top 5 Caribbean destinations for tourism”.

Viewed from our decaying and polluted “flagship” beach, the words ring hollow indeed.

Three flagpoles stand behind Annette’s Bake and Shark. Their white paint has peeled and rust has taken over. What flag would want to fly from those poles anyway, but one at halfmast.