Are you curious why????

There is more to it than just the bird problem.

I was out at the new airport late last fall, looking over the new hangars being built behind the new terminal. We had to get pretty strong with the three watchymen posted out on the road leading into the new airport (which in itself, may be the single nicest roadway in the entire country right now), took the inner roadway to the left of the terminal to go into the rear area, and there it was >>

half of the runway was under water.

The day before, Sto Dgo had received a dumper of a rain (maybe 3 or 4 " in places) and now the water had pooled up on top of the runway.

3 days later, in one of the papers, was posted a fictitious story that Public Works had intentionally flooded the runway area to drive out the birds in hopes of ending the bird problem at the airport.

First problem with the story -there is no water source anywhere near the runways, and there was too much water present even if they had used every available water truck in the DR to do it.

Second problem is that the birds are cattle egrets and they love water too.

The dump sits on the big hill to the right of the airport, as you drive in, about 500 to 800 meters away, and has thousands of birds there. They may soon have a permanent, expensive, home with part-time swimming area if the FAA were to do an inspection after a big rainfall.

Golo100, I just did a quickie search in google.com with the information you provided and got this great site: http://www.samana.com/home.htm
Thanks,
Mirador

GringoCArlos said:

There is more to it than just the bird problem.

I was out at the new airport late last fall, looking over the new hangars being built behind the new terminal. We had to get pretty strong with the three watchymen posted out on the road leading into the new airport (which in itself, may be the single nicest roadway in the entire country right now), took the inner roadway to the left of the terminal to go into the rear area, and there it was >>

half of the runway was under water.

The day before, Sto Dgo had received a dumper of a rain (maybe 3 or 4 " in places) and now the water had pooled up on top of the runway.

3 days later, in one of the papers, was posted a fictitious story that Public Works had intentionally flooded the runway area to drive out the birds in hopes of ending the bird problem at the airport.

First problem with the story -there is no water source anywhere near the runways, and there was too much water present even if they had used every available water truck in the DR to do it.

Second problem is that the birds are cattle egrets and they love water too.

The dump sits on the big hill to the right of the airport, as you drive in, about 500 to 800 meters away, and has thousands of birds there. They may soon have a permanent, expensive, home with part-time swimming area if the FAA were to do an inspection after a big rainfall.

Click to expand...

Forward this report to the ICAO and to the FAA! They will be VERY INTERESTED, to be sure.

Can you just IMAGINE a fully loaded 747 hydroplaning off the end of the runway, all available engines (one is bound to be disabled by a bird strike) in FULL REVERSE????

Also, they may want to check on the loadbearing capability of the runway, since undermining by water is a BIG problem and tends to destroy that capability, not to mention the viability of the runway approach/runway/taxiway lighting installations. It would appear that a 100 year flood plan/environmental impact study was falsified and/or not properly conducted.


Texas Bill

Golo100 said:

On May 16, 2003 you wrote wonders about the Manzanillo Project that involved the unscrupulous group(Trans?????De Desarrollo)that instead of bringing us the "Montecristi International Free Zone for the 3rd. Millenium" with the help of the ambitious Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem it has brought us tons of rock ash to cover our white beautiful beach sands and turn them into black soot.

You also posted that you would be attending the meeting where this outrageous project would be unveiled. bring us up to date as to what happened at that meeting, that is if you attended.

By the way, Trans???De Desarrollo besides having their office in the Piantini apartment where a woman was tortured and where Senator Gomez used to meet with our corrupt politicians often, also show an office at 18 Rue de la Douane in Marseille. I have noticed that this company never pays their maintenance fees on time at the Piantini building and the sister of one of their engineers, who helps with their legal stuff, faced an investigation from Edesur for illegal electricity connection and was given a $50,000 penalty for stealing electricity. Quite a record for an outfit that wants to build a multimillion dollar port.
TW

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Golo100;

I did, in fact, attend the meeting held by the TDD (Trans Dominicana de Desarrolla) at the Golf Club here in Manzanillo. Their presentation was full of hot air and after about an hour I left in disgust because there was NOTHING of substance in their presentation.

The did, in fact, import a huge quantity of the "Rock Ash", spread it all over their compound and pack it down. They gave some of it to the Sindico for use on the disreputable carretera between Manzanillo and Copey to repair an inadequate paving job that was done.

As to covering the 'beautiful white beaches" with "black soot", to begin with, the beaches are and have not been beautiful for several millenia. The locals have seen to that very well, thank you, by depositing their refuse on those same beaches for many years and making absolutely NO effort toward cleaning them or maintaining them.

In addition, I think the reference to Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem as being a party to TDD's scam is incorrect. He was a party to another group from Dubai who wanted to invest in the Megaport project, but couldn't stomache the payoffs demanded by the government and pulled his consortium out, stating that when the DR government paid some of it's bills and got itself on a reasonable financial footing, he'd talk to them again.

Along the line of trying to bring shipping into Manzanillo, I contacted Tropical Shipping. They sent representatives to Manzanillo and met with myself, TDD, the Aduana rep, the Sindico and civil defense people at the Marlin Restraunt (I might add that I paid for the meal at this working luncheon). TDD was confronted as to why they HAD NOT done the necessary repairs/updates to the Wharf/Embarcadero complex so as to comply with the NEW International Standards for such facilities required before commercial shipping would be allowed to land/pickup good here. I got the impression that TDD's answer was not acceptable to Tropical and was just so much bulls**t.
Presently, we have two seperate shipping lines coming in here. One picks up melons and bananas and another delivers an occasional load of concrete. TDD is doing nothing to improve the port facilities, intice other freight lines, nor anything else that I can see to expand the already mediocre facilities.

Let me qualify my remarks (which you referred to in your opening statement) as to the "wonders" to be brought to the area.

Initially, I was very pleased with the PR being given out. So much so that I have formed two companies which would have taken advantage of that expansion/improvement. Since that time I hav, like you, become very disenchanted with TDD. I don't know who they paid off to gain their control, but they haven't done anything here except blow their horn. And that has been all lies. Whoever the people were that originally invested in this project have lost their money with no possibility of regaining it.

I hhope all this answers your questions. If not, PM/email me with whatever questions remain unanswered by this and I'll do my best to bring you further up to date.

Texas Bill