Truckers Hurting
It is quite noticeable.Up to the first couple of months into this New Year 2000, themain road leading to and from the District of East End, was impactedwith the constant rumble of dozens of heavy duty trucks haulingfill and aggregate to and from the main Quarry at East End - anda couple of smaller operations to several construction projectsislandwide.
Suddenly, the roads appear to be silencedas these trucks - along with their owners are sidelined becauseof the absence of the tremendous amount of hauling opportunitiesprovided by the island's main provider of fill and aggregate -Quarry Products - which is now not fully operational.
Adding to this, is the fact that smaller operators - who havetheir own trucks - and importers of fill and aggregate from Cubaand Jamaica - again with their own fleet of trucks, are fillingthe sites which would normally be provide by the East End truckers.
Since commercial mining began here to meet the demands of theconstruction boom for the past two decades, the amount of rockproduced and used, have risen from 200,000 tons in the 1970'sto almost 1.5 million in 1999. The product is utilized to buildeverything: from roads to churches to schools to homes and commercialbuildings. The Harquail Bypass alone used up more than fifth ofall the rock produced last year.
Now, the increased importation of fill and aggregate - which isbeing monitored closely by the Department of Agriculture - hasreduced the usage of local truck owners. It is also suggestedthat there is mounting concern that inhospitable life forms aliento the Cayman Islands are being imported from Cuba and Jamaica.This is particularly worrisome to the folks at the Departmentof Agriculture who are responsible for the prevention of any typeof life form which could negatively impact Cayman's normally pest-freeterrain.
With the slowdown of trucking - also comes the reduction in theprice of some filled residential and commercial lots.
There are emerging signs that there could be an economic downturnfor the families in East End because of the inability of the heavytruck haulers - mainly those whose livelihood depended on thenumerous hauls they were making daily. They have invested heavilyin their equipment with some hefty notes to pay at the end ofevery month.
So what is the future for these truckers? "Not very bright",says one owner of two massive haulers. Meanwhile, the actual futureof Cayman's own mining of this commodity remains unclear.
And although a study has been commissioned by Government to determinethe needs for fill and aggregate for Grand Cayman, there are growingconcerns that locally produced material - with its spin off benefits- will continue to suffer if arrangements are not settled betweenthe operators of local quarries - and some form of protectionis provided so that the truckers who have invested heavily intheir equipment - will be forced to languish from their presentlack of regular earnings form trucking.