JULY 2012

A mysterious erosion phenomenon on Punta Popy beach

Finally resolved by a reader

A reader who has been living in Las Terrenas for 2 years, contacted us yesterday to report a very interesting phenomenon.

Indeed, he began to observe a problem that he thought was caused by Mother Nature.

But not at all. By looking closer to the pictures, he realized something horrifying was going on on the beach which is right after Punta Popy, towards El Limón. There, caliche was placed between the sidewalk and a plot of land since Holy Week 2012, to facilitate access to it, and a strange phenomenon attracted his attention for over a month: a hole was formed on the beach.

The photographer first thought it was natural erosion, but after looking closer and thinking about it, he realized that in front of the place, across the street, several houses are being built.

If you look the photos you will notice that there is a hole of 4 to 5 meters wide and 2 meters deep. This erosion is not natural at all, and it appears that the sand is being stolen for the construction works across the street !

A quick look is enough to compare the volume of sand removed of the beach and the amount of sand used for construction. Plus, the color is exactly the same, with the same roots in it.

We hope we are wrong, but we invite the environment authorities to take a walk, during a sunny Sunday, on these beautiful beaches, which are apparently freely available to negligent builders.

View of Punta Poppy beach and the hole
Close look of the place where sand seems to be removed

Click to enlarge

Stealing sand on Punta Poppy beach

Comments

The person responsible for the construction has written to explain with pictures, that this sand does not come from the beach, but from the land when they started the project. So who stole the sand ?

Lawyer from a large office in the Capital, he promised to help us to find the one who did it.

Click to enlarge

Stealing sand on Punta Poppy beach