conference magazine - Caribbean Environmental Health Institute

The aim of this paper was to assess the impact of the service age of
pipes on the chlorine wall decay constant. One hundred and fifty
three pipe sections of different sizes and four different pipe materials
were collected and tested for their chlorine first-order wall decay
constants. The results showed that pipe service age was an important
factor that must not be ignored. For the range of the 55 years of
pipe service age used in this study, the change in the wall decay
ranged from 8% to 531% of the corresponding values in the recently
installed pipes. The effect of service age on the wall decay constants
was most evident in steel pipes. Other important findings were
reached.
Development of the St. Lucia Recreational Water Quality Standards
by Alexandra DuBoulay
The importance of establishment of recreational water quality standards
is against the backdrop of increasing threats to the coastal
environment largely through land-based sources of marine pollution.
The threat from pollution has significant implications not only to the
health and well-being of the citizens of Saint Lucia but serves to
degrade the tourism product, which is the primary economic driver of
the country. Based on the findings and consultative process in this
study it was recommended that ‘Guidelines’ be developed that
should be translated into a more ‘prescriptive’ Standard. The development
of the guidelines for recreational water quality for St. Lucia
involved various components including public sensitization activities,
technical consultations, field visits, meetings with resource personnel,
public and institutional perception surveys and literature reviews.
To inform the development of the guideline, local stakeholder input
was solicited. This was done on two levels: (1) through national
consultations when a series of four events were hosted in which
participants were sensitized on the initiative, who in turn offered
suggestions on what the components of the guidelines should
include, and (2) through island-wide surveys of individuals and businesses/institutions
to obtain inputs on perceptions associated with
the definition, use and management of recreational waters. A monitoring
framework is also proposed as part of the guidelines. The
guideline presented in this study is intended to be used as the basis
for the actual development of the standard. It is recommended that
the process be channelled through the national standards-setting
body, the St. Lucia Bureau of Standards. It is recommended that the
legislative provisions of relevant front-line agencies incorporate references
to the recreational water quality standard so as to expand
institutional support to ensure compliance to the standard. The
guideline document developed by CEHI can be used to ensure that
recreational water in St. Lucia meets the desired quality.
Connections between Land Use Changes and Water Quality in a
Subtropical Urban Coastal Watershed in Florida, USA by Gurpal
S. Toor
Eutrophication is a broad term used to describe enhanced phytoplankton
growth in water bodies that receive excess nutrients such
as nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from various land uses in a watershed.
In the US and elsewhere, eutrophication is one of the
greatest threats to the coastal economies and health of the estuaries.
Further, the impact of land use changes on water quality especially
in coastal tropical and subtropical areas is of immense interest.
This interest stems from dependence of coastal economies on open
water for fisheries and recreational purposes. In rapidly developing
coastal urban communities such as those in the Caribbean and Florida,
solutions that are protective of water quality while allowing future
development are urgently needed. Unfortunately, most land use
modification decisions lack scientific rigor which further complicates
the impact of such changes on water quality of receiving water
bodies.
Recent research has suggested that controls on both N and P transport
from land to water might be needed to control eutrophication in
freshwater-marine continuum. Therefore, the inputs of N and P are
greater in human dominated land uses (agricultural and urban) as
compared to relatively undeveloped land areas such as natural forests.
The nutrient sources can be divided into “point sources” such
as wastewater and industrial effluents and “non-point sources” such
as runoff and leaching from urban and agricultural areas. Non-point
source pollution is dominant in most of the watersheds in the US and
elsewhere. Urban storm water runoff is the major contributor of
nutrients to coastal water bodies in developed and rapidly developing
regions.
Florida is one of the rapidly developing states in the US and has
serious water quality problems such as eutrophication of coastal
waters. Therefore, it is important to assess the impact of anthropogenic
activities on water quality of coastal waters. This presentation
will discuss how the land use changes in an urban coastal area, the
Alafia River Watershed (drainage area: 1085 km 2 ) that drains into
the Tampa Bay estuary, has impacted the water quality. This watershed
represents a typical urbanizing watershed in the region with a
diverse mix of urban, agricultural, and mixed land uses. The presentation
will specifically address how the different land uses have
impacted losses of various organic and inorganic forms of N and P
from 1991 to 2009.
The presentation will conclude with an optimized water quality monitoring
approach and synthesis of best management practices that
rapidly urbanizing communities in Florida and Caribbean countries
can use to assess the impacts of land use changes on water quality
and protect their valuable water resources.
Assessing exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in
the Caribbean by Martin Forde and Eric Dewailly
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have become widespread in
the environment and are now widely recognized as a global contamination
problem. Although mapping of the scope and scale of POPs
contamination has begun in most developed countries and is ongoing,
to date, there has been a lack of information concerning the
sources, fates, and effects of these highly toxic, bio-accumulative,
persistent chemicals within the Caribbean region.
This lack of information is particularly troubling since it is well known
that many POP chemicals have been extensively used within this
region for agriculture and vector control purposes over several decades.
Since the half-lives of many POPs can be measured in decades,
it is plausible that significant POP chemical concentrations
may still be present in the Caribbean environment which continue to
serve as major causes of contamination to the region’s food and
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FIFTH BIENNIAL CARIBBEAN ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM AND EXHIBITION