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Here are the basic problems with licensing Argyle airport:
There is no purpose built medical facility of any kind whatsoever built at the airport.
There is no hospital within a short distance capable of coping with crash emergency victims.
There is no hospital anywhere on the island capable of coping with crash emergency victims.
There is no dedicated ambulance service centre located at the airport.
No ambulances have been purchased for the airport.
There are no dedicated rescue boats located adjacent to the airport.
There are no dedicated rescue boats anywhere on the island at all.
There are no dedicated rescue helicopters located at the airport.
There are no rescue helicopters or any other type of helicopter anywhere on the island.
There is no sewage treatment plant at the airport.
There is no mains electricity supply at the airport.
There are no traps for contaminated runway or apron water; it will be run straight into the sea.
There is no radar system at the airport that can keep a track of aircraft, just the old radio and binoculars system. And, apparently, none planned for any time in the future.
There is no emergency cross-runway provision for adverse wind conditions for small aircraft, which includes LIAT.
The runway is built on a swamp and requires a ground radar test for safety purposes.
Part of the aircraft apron at the terminal is built on swamp also.
The Yambou river tunnelling requires removal and a different system installing.
Most of the airport land is only compacted to 45% and should be compacted to 94% and 100%. Aircraft veering off the runway may become buried in soft soil. The soil above the
Yambou is not compacted at all.
The approach lights are only connected to a generator and they are required to be connected to a dual supply for emergency purposes. Currently, they are not even connected to the generator since they recently dug up the supply lines.
There is over 1 million cubic feet of contaminated land at the airport which is now connected to the sea, affecting fish and sea birds.
The landowners whose property was taken to construct the airport remain unpaid eight years after they were due for payment. Vincentians in New York, London and Toronto are going to placard picket the offices of any international carriers who use Argyle Airport.
The original senior chief engineer who was responsible for constructing the airport has refused to sign off because of safety hazards and deviance from his instructions without his agreement or/and against his professional advice.
Just to let you know, this week two men with paint brushes started to paint the rusty perimeter security fence. They have not wire brushed or used rust neutralizer before painting and are painting straight on top of the rust.
Peter Binose
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With all due respect, Peter, even if your claims are actually true, they are irrelevant, obfuscatory, and distorted.
First, like me, you have often argued that Argyle International Airport was built just for show and vote getting. So what else would you expect to see if this is just a phoney political project?
Second, and more important, please tell me which operating airports in similar sized countries all across the Caribbean have the kinds of facilities you imply are absolutely essential for a facility to be certified as operational? For example, which have sewage treatment plants? And why would you expect sewage treatment at the airport when there is none anywhere else in our land, including the hospital? Which airports have rescue boats and helicopters or in-airport medical facilities?
Third, and equally important, how can all these services be expected to be in place in a facility that is still under construction and so far from completion?
As for the compaction issue, something you have raised dozens of times, how can you accept your readers to accept this assertion just because you have made it (without presenting a scintilla of evidence) but without any independent corroboration from experts in this area?
Your most interesting assertion — which I accept as true — is the painting of the rusting fences with no preparation (though there are several brands of rust paint that require no preparation). You well know that this is the standard way repainting takes place in our backward little country. (A neighbour of mine had her steel fence repainted by a full-time painter a few years ago. The fence faces the very dusty roadway and the workman did not even wipe it off with an old cloth before proceeding. Of course, the paint began to fail recently and had to be repainted by a visiting relative from overseas who had the sense gained in the diaspora to wash it off first with a garden hose.
So, even if all your facts are correct, they hardly have any significance.
If you want to make a real contribution to the airport debate, why not give us a full accounting of the expenditures on it to once more debunk the issue of a “coalition of the willing” paying 70 percent of its construction. My crude estimate is that various loans constitute at least 70 percent of the cost so far, a figure that is bound to grow. So put your Bi-nose to the grindstone and give us a fuller accounting of this important issue because, unlike the above assertions, all the data you would need is available from verifiable sources.
Have a nice day, my friend!
David, because your comments are written out of spite and jealousy they have not been chosen for reply.
So why did you choose to reply to me using one of your countless nom de plumes on another site where you posted this same item?
Peter, Peter, you are so immature for a big man, continually using pseudonyms for pseudonyms for pseudonyms whenever anyone offers you any criticism, constructive (in my case) or otherwise.
To use another of your many pseudonyms — this time “Paul Summers Jr.” — to vilify me for the crime of asking for some verification for your claims is the sign of someone who suffers from very low self esteem, among many other afflictions such as rejection for being jilted by the current regime’s leader.
I am not trying to destroy you (you certainly don’t need my help in that area), I am not a spiteful person (and what exactly am I spiteful of you cannot say), and I am certainly not eaten up with jealousy of a man who (1) has never written any books (I am the author of two — not much, I admit, but better than zero), (2) has no articles in refereed scholarly journals (of which I have dozens in the leading academic magazines in my field), (3) has never published an editorial in a leading international newspaper that that has been vetted by an editorial board (of which I have dozens), (4) has never been asked to review books in any field of study (of which I have many), (5) has never received tens of thousands of dollars of research funds to conduct various studies in his field of study (unlike me), and (6) does not have a single university degree (I have three: BA., MA, and PhD, all from the leading university in my overseas country).
I would never, ever claim to be an internationally renowned scholar. But I did attain the rank of Full Professor at my university, a status second only to Distinguished Professor (of which there are a very limited number granted), while many of my colleagues languished until retirement at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor.
So come on, man, how and why could I possibly envy someone like you?!
Peter Binose, in reply to the third essay in my series on Argyle airport in St. Vincent you wrote:
“David, a brilliant letter, may I congratulate you on bringing the truth to us in such a well researched, remarkable and well thought out letter/opinion. thank you David. lets have some more of your writings. Peter Binose” (http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Letter%3A-Lessons-for-Argyle-International-Airport-from-the-cruise-ship-industry-24578.html ).
This was one of many highly complementary remarks about my research and writing over the past two years.
Recently, however, you have begun calling me an envious, plagiarizing, and incompetent fraud and charlatan who can do no better than compile other people’s work.
Why this sudden transformation? Why have I gone from brilliant to dunce in such a short period of time?
Is it because you were lying then? Is it because you are lying now? Is it because you are a chronic liar?
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave: When first we practise to deceive!” (Sir Walter Scott)
Or is it simply because I have questioned your observations, hypotheses, assertions, inferences, and conclusions because they are not based on objective, reliable, and verifiable evidence (as is my duty to do as a trained social scientist)?
Or is it because I have exposed you as a cheap political hack for the NDP, a hired party gun in exactly the same way that Vinciman is a paid operative of the ULP?
Why, Peter, why?