Waterfalls!

Waterfalls!

St Thomas' best kept secret

Locals earn from little known ‘Reggae Falls

BY INGRID BROWN Associate editor — special assignment browni@jamaicaobserver.com

Monday, March 03, 2014

WATERFALLS cascading several feet to the Johnson River in Hillside, St Thomas not only serve as a relaxing place for visitors wanting to spend an enjoyable day with nature, but also provide an income to the many unemployed residents in this farming district.

They have eked out a living working as tour guides, car washers, babysitters and cooks for the many locals and foreigners alike who are known to visit the area, which is being described as St Thomas' best kept secret.

The residents claim the water, which spouts warm from a section of the rock, contains sulphur and assists in healing wounds.

"If you have a wound and you go in the water you frighten fi see how quick it heal," explained resident Deborah Whyte.

Although they have been earning, albeit in an ad hoc manner, the residents are calling on tourism organisations to help them secure formal training as official tour guides and to help them improve Reggae Falls — as they have since dubbed it – by putting in sanitray and other conveniences. They also want the Jamaica Tourist Board to promote the facility locally and overseas, to attract more visitors.

According to the residents, visitors prefer to come to Reggae Falls instead of Bath Fountain because it is much more quiet and there is less harassment.

Whyte, who often works as tour guide, car washer and even babysitter said the facility has the potential to provide a steady income.

"When the visitors them come, if wi have some lime or a plantain or some jelly wi carry it come down here. We might see a crowd and wi tell them we have some lime and them say go pick it and carry come and just like that we mek a sale," she said.

According to Whyte, who escorted the Jamaica Observer North East on a treacherous track to a shallow area in the river which allowed for easy crossing to the nearby falls, the visitors are the ones who often request the residents' assistance as tour guides.

"Sometimes them will come from all over Jamaica and overseas, and will ask us to direct them to the falls and we would take them over to there," she said.

"Because we know the area, we know when it raining in the head of the river and we tell them so they can know where to go," she said.

Whyte further explained that when the river is dry some people will drive their SUVs through the river bed to the closest point to the falls. When this happens, the residents might not earn from guiding tours, but they will from cooking and selling food along the river.

The mother of two said only recently a large group of police officers visited the area, which provided a decent earning for people who were willing to wash cars.

"Mi mek $13,000 that day washing cars," she said, adding: "Sometimes I even earn money by babysitting the children while the parents go up to the falls".

Joan Harris said the summer is the busiest period for the residents as this is when the largest number of persons visit.

"People feel safe to come here because the residents look out for them and they know they are going to come back and see their vehicle the same way dem leave it," she said.

"On a holiday, you don't have space up there and not even Dunn's River can test that time, because people come from as far as Westmoreland," she added.

Residents also earn by allowing visitors to park in their yards for $100, or from vending the produce they farm.

"Sometimes when you see the high-end vehicles that come up here and even more people would come if they knew about it because of how lovely the falls is and also because the community is safe," said Harris.

Font Hill resident Daneisha Wright, who was visiting the falls at the time the Observer North East was there, said this was one of her favourite spot in the parish.

"I always come here as often as I can because it is a lovely place," she said before diving off a huge rock into the river below.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/St-Thomas--best-kept-secret_16172474

More Renewavble energy For Jamaica

Not sure what part of this doesn't make sense but there are always doubters and even more those who cling to their power.....

Can Jamaica realise its saving potential from renewables?

Friday, June 27, 2014

On the face of it, renewable energy should translate into savings for Jamaica.

BMR Energy signed a deal on Wednesday to sell Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) electricity from its planned 34 megawatt (MW) wind farm at 12.9 US cents ($14.30) per kilowatt-hour (kWh).

Bruce Levy reckons that the rate is almost half the cost of electricity generated from the oldest, most inefficient diesel plants currently in operations in Jamaica.

"At worst, using diesel fuel in an older engine, it might cost up to 25 US cents," the CEO of BMR Energy told the Business Observer. "If you use heavy fuel oil (HFO) in a modern engine you might end up in the teens (US cents per kWh). With natural gas you could easily end up in the 14 US cents range."

The new energy company, which was one of three bidders to be given the nod to build out large-scale renewable projects in Jamaica, plans to construct its wind farm using 11 turbines located along a ridge line just west of JPS's 3 MW wind farm in Munro, St Elizabeth.

When fully operational, it expects to deliver up to 120,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) to the grid each year, which is hardly a stretch given that Wigton's 38.7 MW wind farm put out 116,000 MWh last year. That represents about three per cent of total energy production in Jamaica.

But wind-power technology is not yet able to replace load requirements for the electricity grid, particularly since it only generates electricity when there is sufficient wind, like sun in the case of solar.

"Output changes by month," explained Levy. "June is (Jamaica's) windiest month, July and August is less, and the rest of the year is pretty flat at low levels. This is why we needed two years of measurement to assess wind availability."

Managing power systems to handle intermittent supply is by far not a new science, but it often comes at a cost.

"When you have intermittent resources you have to have generation that can respond to the differences in how that wind or solar reacts," JPS CEO Kelly Tomblin told the Business Observer. "Wind is better than solar because it usually doesn't just suddenly goes off. And there is usually some predictability about it.

"But it requires JPS to have the flexibility to have units that are flexible enough to rise and fall with the production of wind. That's what we need to do now."

Load following power plants, which adjusts its power output as demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day, typically are less efficient, slower to start up, more expensive to build and costlier to run than base load plants, from which the bulk of power is derived.

"There may be a plant that in its purest form has a very low heat rate of 6,000 (kilojoules per kilowatt-hour, or kJ/kWh) or above," said Tomblin of prospects for technology which are farm more efficient than Jamaica's system heat rate of 10,200. "But we might not be able to choose that if our national goal is to have 20 to 30 per cent renewable.

"Our system which peaks at under 650 MW can go below 400 MW off peak; 140 MW of renewable is going to require us to schedule and plan the system very strategically (to benefit from savings)."

Currently, JPS's 32 MW of wind and hydro power combined with Wigton's 38.7 MW brings the total installed renewable capacity to just over 70 MW.

Another 78 MW is scheduled to come on stream by next year, with BMR's wind farm, Wigton's additional 24 MW project at Rose Hill, and Content Solar's 20 MW planned project to be located close to Content Village in Clarendon.

Tomblin said that while JPS is supportive of the renewable projects, it needs an "integrated resource plan that looks at our load at what we expect to happen to that load and what resource is right for each location".

"We are working on that now."

Correctly balancing renewable energy resources with conventional power technology can also return huge economic and environmental benefits.

BMR estimates that replacement of old, existing generation with its wind output can translate into a reduction in Jamaica's oil imports by 250,000 to 300,000 barrels a year. That could conceivably save US$25 million from the oil bill each year.

It is also expected to lower emissions of carbon dioxide by two million tonnes and nitrous oxide by 7,000 tons annually, or the equivalent of the greenhouse gases given off by over 800,000 passenger vehicles each year.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Can-Jamaica-realise-its-saving-potential-from-renewables-_17025365

Can Jamaica Increase Coffee Production?

  Coffee production in Jamaica from an article in The Gleaner -

Is Jamaica on a coffee break? Local farmers among lowest producers in region, says CIB

Published: Monday | September 29, 2014
Marie Hill, Gleaner Writer
WITH THE price per box of Blue Mountain Coffee averaging $5,000, the coffee-farming sector is missing out on a bonanza in the region of $2.5 billion annually, which would be possible if production reaches the 500,000 boxes targeted by the Coffee Industry Board (CIB) and the Jamaica Agricultural Society.
Currently, earnings in the sector are less than half this target amount as coffee production has fallen to less than 200,000 boxes annually.
Local coffee production, which has fallen from a high of more than 500,000 boxes in 2004 to under 200,000 boxes for the last crop year, continues to compare unfavourably with other producers in Central America and the Caribbean, Gusland McCook, manager of the Advisory Services Unit with the CIB, states.
While average production in Jamaica ranges from eight boxes per acre to 37 boxes for larger farms, in Mexico, average production is higher, ranging from 16 boxes per acre in the Oaxaca region to 52 boxes in Vera Cruz. One box of cherry coffee converts to 9.5 pounds of green beans.
Jamaican production is also much lower than Colombia, where production averages 57 boxes per acre, and Costa Rica, where the average is 97 boxes.
MAKE USE OF TECHNOLOGY
McCook is suggesting that local farmers make use of technology to improve yield, noting that the most productive in Jamaica are a "very small" group who make use of technology in farming and now average production of 82 boxes of coffee per acre.
McCook was speaking during 'Coffee - Challenges in Production and Export', staged by the Caribbean Academy of Sciences, Jamaica, in collaboration with the Pesticide Research Laboratory and the CIB at the University of the West Indies, Mona, recently.
CIB data indicate that among more than 10,000 farmers, most of whom are registered with the CIB, the average small holder farms coffee on five acres and produces on an average eight boxes per acre.
In between these two extremes are farmers who produce inconsistently and who are described by the board as "opportunists". Their production level is higher, at an average 20 boxes per acre.
At the high end of production are regular large coffee farmers, producing on farms of average size 13 acres with output of 37 boxes per acre. At the most productive end - 82 boxes per acre, farm size averages 107 acres and gross annual income is approximately $24 million.
Coffee producers in Jamaica are spread from the Blue Mountains region in St Andrew, Portland, and St Thomas to the highlands of western Jamaica.
The island is segmented into four regions by the coffee board, with the largest region being Blue Mountains farming country, which has 2,856 registered farmers and just over 6,000 acres under cultivation.
Producers in the island's northern region - east and western St Ann, Guy's Hill, and north-west and central St Catherine - include 577 registered farmers, with 682 acres under cultivation.
In the central region - South Trelawny, St Elizabeth, north and south Manchester, Frankfield and south and eastern Clarendon - the board notes 566 registered farmers, with 460 acres being actively cultivated.
In western Jamaica - inclusive of production areas in Catadupa and Darliston - there are 103 registered farmers, with 80.53 acres under cultivation.
editor@gleanerjm.com
From the comments -

Anjahli Parnell • 2 months ago

A box of coffee cherry is 60 pounds, so that is a price of about 83.35 JA$ per pound, which would equal about 75 cents in US$. Kona coffee, which is comparable to Jamaican Blue Mountain, is bought from farmers at $1.75 per pound of coffee cherry. Who is fooling who? How can the farmers in Jamaica be motivated to grow coffee at this price?

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140929/lead/lead2.html