ISLAND CARE
Has been overviewed from the begining of reconstruction by the new
PALM ISLAND NATURE RESERVE ASSOCIATION
with the permanent sponsoring and support of the Palm Island Resort Company

The basic problems were:
  • Cleaning the island of 30 years dumping
  • Fixing the swampy areas
  • Setting a rainwater draining system


    Cleaning the island of 30 years dumping

    For many years, the technique to fill the huge swamp which covered most of the center of the island, has been to dump whatever "refuses" (proper old John's words) with palmtrees trimming. It has been very effective, until the amount of garbage that the resort produced exceeded what nature could swallow. Then, the center of the island turned little by little in a huge dumping area.


    • It took 8 months to a crew of six people to collect, sort and dispose properly of tons of dumping. For exemple the conic pile of collected glass bottles reached 30 feet in diameter by 6 feet high! (They have been crushed and used for roads basement). Aluminium, lead, plastic had been sent oversea for recycling and whatever could be safely burnt had been. Most of degradable had been later mixed with sand to raise the level of very low portions of the island.

    Fixing the swampy areas

    On top of the fact that the center of the island is almost at sea level, (see further), a classic solar evaporation plant has been built, alongside the main hill, probably in the early nineteen. Abandonned since many years, opening to the sea closed, it turned to a huge flat muddy area permanently underwater or dry depending the weather. A real paradise for mosquitos! The problem was that there was no soil in Palm to fill it, and that ground was to fragile to accept any heavy equipment to dredge it.
    The only solution was to dredge it BY HAND!

    Dredging the lagoon

    May 99 : Begining

    Nov 99 : Finition

    Opening the canal

    And now:


    Setting a rainwater draining system

    Palm Island has basically a plate shape : very low in the middle, and a bit higher on the edges. Center is barely one inch over the water table. Rainwater has no way to escape, and few times, after several days of heavy rain, the island has been flood for almost a week. In order to fix the problem, a circular ditch, collecting most of the rainwater. had been dredged in the middle of the island. It had been connected to the main lagoon, itself connected to the sea.

    An island in the island

    Before

    After