Residents in the National District awoke on Wednesday, 18 July 2018 to discover there were several beaches along the shoreline when the media focused on how tons of plastic garbage had been deposited on these. The monster wave of garbage flowed downstream from the Ozama River to the Caribbean Sea. Efforts had been on the way to collect the garbage up river, but an unexplained lack of coordination, led to the barge bridge to be lifted sending the tons of garbage to the shoreline. The intense rains on Tuesday had sent all the trash down the river. The invasion of plastics put into evidence the lack of civic and environmental education.
By Sunday, 22 July, the garbage had all been cleared from the Plaza de Montesinos beach and final efforts were carried out to remove the remaining garbage from the beach at Fortaleza San Gil. It was a costly titanic job, undertaken by the city government of the National District (Santo Domingo), the most affected, with the backing of the Ministry of Public Works.
On Sunday, the Santo Domingo Hotels Association (AHSD) congratulated the effort of the city government and the Ministry of Public Works. And city residents that thronged by the thousands to see the deluge of garbage then rediscovered two golden sand beaches at Fortaleza San Gil and the Plaza Montesinos. The beaches are off limits for swimmers due to general water contamination.
Roberto Henriquez, president of AHSD, congratulated the authorities on the efficient and prompt effort to remove the wastes from the shoreline, especially from Playita de Montesinos that had received 80% of the wastes from the Greater Santo Domingo and Monte Plata provinces to the north.
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Noticias SIN/
23 July 2018
