The Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association (JHTA) wants the National Works Agency (NWA) to immediately attend to an incomplete canal in Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth that, it says, is threatening the health and safety of residents and visitors to that community.

“Construction of the canal, which began after the last hurricane season, August 2006, to take water from Salt Lake Pond to the sea, has to date not been completed, but instead left a gaping hole and mounds of dirt piled against the northern walls of the Marblue Resort,” JHTA president Wayne Cummings said in a news release.

“To add insult to injury, in February, the NWA dug yet another hole, this time in front of the resort, leaving a 20-foot pile of dirt there,” Cummings added.

The incomplete canal, he said, now poses a danger to both locals and tourists, as water has settled in the excavated areas to form ponds, which are breeding sites for mosquitoes. This, he argued, is “a serious health hazard”, given “the ever-present risk of malaria in Jamaica”.

Cummings added that the problem is compounded whenever there is rain as the roads are being constantly flooded, bringing ground transportation to a virtual halt, causing damage to property and further endangering the lives and livelihood of the citizenry.

“It is not unreasonable to have expected that this canal would have been completed before the 2007 hurricane season, and already, last week’s rains have caused flooding in the area, leaving citizens virtually marooned,” said the JHTA president.

“Community tourism is important to Treasure Beach,” he added. “Residents depend on it to provide for themselves and their families, but the deplorable state of the roads is making the area inaccessible, unattractive, unsafe and unhealthy. This situation is totally untenable and must be addressed now, before a major catastrophe occurs.”