Last week, The Gleaner reported “citizen rage” in St. James and Hanover about the events that led to the disappearance and probable death of a police officer.  Special Sergeant Eric Haughton was helping to recover a boat that had been reported stolen.  The boat capsized near Great River, and Sergeant Haughton was lost overboard.  So far, a routine accident...

The outrage started when neither the marine police nor the Coast Guard could search for Sgt. Haughton because none of their boats was working.  It seems none of their divers was working either, because the Superintendent of Police called the Marine Park for help.

With only the sketchiest of information, the Park’s Executive Director, Brian Zane and Board Member, Rob McKinney, carried by a dive boat from Captain’s Water Sports from Round Hill, took up the search.  In spite of strong currents, big waves, and 6 - 10" visibility, they searched the quarter mile between Great River and the Round Hill point - to no avail.

It’s bad that the marine police and Coast Guard can’t do their job – protecting lives and property at sea and upholding the rule of law – because their boats are broken down.  It’s worse that the Minister of National Security knows about the situation but “cannot give a timeline” for fixing it.  The remedy, it appears, will be begging new boats from “international partners”.

Worse yet is that the failure of most of these boats is almost certainly due to poor or neglected maintenance.  Everybody wants to drive the boat.  Nobody wants to look after it.  And once it breaks down, there’s nobody to fix it.

We need some new priorities.  First, Montego Bay urgently needs a proper boatyard – a place where boats and engines can be looked after and repaired quickly, properly, and at reasonable cost.  This would not only serve the local fishing, water sports, law enforcement and pleasure boating communities, but would also be a valuable attraction for high-end yachting tourism.  Seed capital for this facility would be a fitting use for both Infrastructure Development and Tourism Enhancement funds.

Also, and maybe more important, we need to move away from the “use it up, toss it out, and go beg a new one” culture that got us into this mess in the first place.  From wasted food and water to garbage in the gullies, from torn-up hillsides and shorelines to dead and dying coral reefs, we don’t take care of what we have and try to make it last.

We could get away with this when there was a steady parade of foreign governments and international agencies ready to give us new trucks, new computers and new boats whenever we broke the old ones.  And for decades we got away with pouring garbage into the sea and hauling fish out, telling ourselves that “God will provide”.  God got tired of our disrespect, the fish have almost run out, and the foreign governments and international agencies have problems of their own.

There’s no question that the marine police and Coast Guard need boats that work whenever they’re called on.  The money and energy spent cussing the present situation and begging new boats would be better spent getting the old ones back in service and making sure they stayed that way.