August 4, 2012Dear Sir,Several months ago I wrote a letter to the newspaper in reference to building up our Causeway and airport area but it fell on deaf ears and all I got was criticism. The world’s oceans are getting higher and higher all the time, so why don’t we in Bermuda give some consideration to building up our airport and Causeway areas? The way it could be done would be to improve our Causeway area first, and then improve the airport area second. If our Causeway area were to be made higher and wider by some 20 feet respectively, this would be a great start.I would start building up the Southeast side of our Causeway by placing a sheet piling method similar to the one used when No 8 Dock was built. Sheet steel piling comes in 50-foot lengths and it all interlocks together. Driving sheet interlocking piling into the Southeastern side of the Causeway would act as a protection against high surge caused by a hurricane. Large tunnels could be placed at intervals along the whole length of our Causeway area to alleviate the pressure of water that would build up in the event of a hurricane. When the sheet piling was put in place (this has to be done with heavy equipment cranes), you could start placing those large cinderblocks that are made from the ashes produced at the Tynes Bay Incinerator and those metal cages that have heavy rocks in them that come from our Government quarry area in the area between the sheet piling and the Causeway.After forming the base of this area you could then start filling in with local rubble. Currently, these large cinderblocks are dumped “willy-nilly” anywhere at our present dump reclaiming area on the Southern side of our airport, and it’s only a matter of time if we get a severe hurricane that gives us a direct hit, these cinderblocks will end up in Castle Harbour, never to be seen again. The same principle which I’ve described for our Causeway area could be adapted to the dumping area of our airport. Build cofferdam areas as you build up the dump area (a cofferdam is built by using interlocking sheet piling) and made up of an area which you would enclose with dumping materials. This whole project will cost millions upon millions of dollars to build, but in the long run it will be worth every dollar, plus it would be an ongoing way to employ some of our labour force. The way to help pay for a project of this magnitude would be for our Government to introduce a controlled lottery system and we could also ask our American friends to assist us with this project.PETER BROMBY SrPaget