The spill has also caused damage to crayfish, crabs, fish and waterfowl in the area.
14ymedio, Havana, May 25, 2024 — Meliá Trinidad Peninsula, the hotel colossus that accounted for 60% of the construction budget for 2023 in Sancti Spíritus, has caused a significant deterioration of the province’s mangroves in just six months of activity. In a warning call published by the local radio station, the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment denounced the “dumping of waste” from the hotel into sensitive ecosystems on the southern coast of Sancti Spíritus.
The photographs that accompany the report give the measure of the damage. It is not only garbage and other waste, but also toxic material that produces a “pestilence of contaminated water,” especially on the stretch of road that connects the town of Casilda with the southern beaches. The cause of the spill appears to be – according to ministry specialists – an obstruction in the hotel’s waste processing system.
In addition to the mangrove ecosystem in the Las Piñas area, the first affected have been Cuban “drivers and vacationers,” who cannot afford to stay at the Meliá and who, traditionally, have swam on those beaches. The Ministry says it has forwarded its complaint to the provincial delegation of Hydraulic Resources, in charge of managing the hotel’s drainage. From one official source to another, there has been no solution.
Residents in the area have expressed concern about the pestilence and have complained to the official media
“So far, the waste spill that caused damage to the mangrove ecosystem and its biodiversity has not been resolved: crabs, crayfish, fish and aquatic birds are victims of the contamination,” they lament.
Residents in the area have expressed their concern about the pestilence and have complained to the official media, a fact that – the Ministry c
