There are about nine ambulances providing emergency transport from accident scenes to emergency centers around the island. UNIMED has two; AirEvac in West Bay has one; Woods Medical Clinic has one; there is the airport ambulance; the Red Cross and COPECO have one ambulance each; and the Roatan Fire Department has two ambulances.

The islanders relied on their neighbors and enterprising businessmen to help with emergency transport until the late 1990s. That changed in 1998, when Hurricane Mitch battered Roatan and the Fire Department received its ambulance. It was based at the Coxen Hole fire station and staffed by Fire Chief Elton Woods.

Emergency dispatching takes place via WhatsApp groups, where someone posts an emergency and another person reads it and says an ambulance has been contacted. It is a poor man’s emergency dispatch system, but it works.
Some believe it could work better. “It is a shame Roatan still doesn’t have an emergency dispatcher,” said Ana Svoboda, president of the Honduran Red Cross Bay Islands Council from 2016 to 2021. “This would reduce anxiety; get emergency services to accident scenes more quickly and ultimately save lives.”

It is a poor man’s emergency dispatch.

Roatan is now dotted with private clinics offering emergency ambulance services. West End-based UNIMED has two ambulances and provides services to tourists and locals. Their ambulances provide BLS, or basic life support, and DLS, or advanced life support. They have systems to treat heart failure. “Our doctors provide treatment on-site, not at the clinic,” says Daniel Cartagena, UNIMED’s manager since 2018. “We do the first assessment on-site, and if it is a motorcycle accident, we take them to Satuye Hospital.”

UNIMED is strategically located in West End and offers emergency transport, 24/7 emergency care, lab tests, X-rays, general surgery, air ambulance services, and an array of specialist doctors. UNIMED began in 2015 with a wheeled ambulance based at Coconut Tree in West End. “We assisted with many emergencies at that time,” Cartagena says.

In 2019, UNIMED expanded its services to provide a stabilization facility and care for minor emergencies. UNIMED is part of a chain of clinics and urgent care centers in Latin America. UNIMED is a sister company of AirEvac International and is owned by Raul Mendoza, a California businessman.

There are several other private clinic ambulance providers for cruise passengers in case of emergency. One of them is the island’s oldest private hospital, owned by Dr. Jackie Woods.

Dr. Woods opened Woods Medical Center, or WMC, on Main Street in Coxen Hole in 1999. From the beginning, the center has operated as a 24/7 emergency facility. Since 2023, it has had its own ambulance. “We only use the ambulance for cruise ship patients,” said Dr. Woods, owner of Woods Medical Center. In 2025, WMC has an intensive care unit, or ICU, that is able to stabilize a patient. “We can treat trauma,” Dr. Woods said.

The biggest necessity is the blood bank.

Other elements of good emergency treatment include the availability of emergency blood centers and 24/7 laboratories. The key is Coxen Hole’s Satuye Hospital, which stores Roatan’s blood supply. The typically stored supply of 10 to 12 pints of blood is small and easily depleted. “The biggest necessity is the blood bank, 10 to 12 pints of blood, and those can be drained with just a couple of motorcycle accidents,” said Jackie Woods. While the island’s Red Cross has a list of several donors with AB blood type, the price per pint is $60 to $70.

After operating for years at the mall in French Harbour, CEMESA is currently closed. CEMESA purchased a house from the former Roatan mayor at the intersection of Jackson Road and Main Road in Brick Bay and is working to open sometime in 2026.

Roatan Muni is Setting Up a “Smart City” Monitoring Infrastructure

The new surveillance system is designed so that an individual can request a recording through an office at the municipal building. In cases of traffic accidents or robberies, a party involved can request video from the location and time the incident occurred. “It has to follow the legal chain of custody,” said Ing. Castillo.

The CCTV cameras are monitored from Monitoring Center and Municipal Police building located 50 meters behind the Roatan municipal building. The building is named after Joseph Solomon, a longtime Roatan Municipal Police chief. “We don’t know what we are going to see on these cameras,” said Solomon. “The idea is to respond when somebody is in need of help. If a woman has a broken-down car and needs to change a tire, we will come out and assist.”

Solomon doesn’t foresee any unintended consequences besides people trying to destroy the cameras. “People will feel more secure moving around, knowing that ‘Big Daddy’ is watching, you know,” said Solomon. Yet, as in all large surveillance projects, there are always unintended consequences.

One unintended consequence that could likely occur is that people may become more hesitant to assist a driver in distress, preferring for the municipality to take action. Another issue is the loss of a sense of privacy — something that is impossible to assign a monetary value to. “The negative is that the population feels their privacy is being violated,” said Johnny Suazo, project manager for Innova Solutions, which installed the cameras and trained camera operators.

The plan is for the CCTV system to be supervised 24/7 by six operators and two supervisors working in three shifts. Around 25 people will be employed in the monitoring center and likely more municipal police will be hired. Currently, the CCTV video is stored for 30 days, but that duration of storage can be changed. The system has been set up to store information from 400 cameras, with the potential to add up to 350 more.
The Roatan Municipality plans to fund the monitoring system through fines collected from residents. Infractions would include parking cars in the bike lane, littering, leaving trash by the dump outside of allowed hours, and pouring concrete on the road—all punishable by monetary fines. “At some point, we are going to be able to recognize the cars, identify the owners and send the bills online,” said Ing. Castillo.

Population feels their privacy is being violated.

The exact cost to run this operation is not known, but Paya Magazine estimates that with 25 salaried employees, the monthly cost will easily surpass $25,000. In addition, maintenance and technical fees could easily double that number, so it will probably cost over $500,000 a year to maintain this surveillance system.

This monthly municipal cost must come from local taxes or fines. Either way, island residents will have to pay for the project. In a growing economy and with a growing tax base, this type of project is one thing, but once the economy slows down—like it did during the 2008–09 financial crisis, the 2009–10 Honduran presidential coup, and again during the 2020–21 COVID-19 lockdowns—a cost of half a million dollars a year during an economic downturn will be a heavy burden to bear.

For the island it is no small-budget item, as the project was 100% funded by Roatan Municipality taxpayers. The idea is for it to become part of a national security and monitoring system. “If, by mandate, the central government someday wants to implement general 911 systems throughout the country, they could integrate this investment into what they already operate,” said Ing. Castillo.

While on Roatan so far around 90 million Lempiras had already been spent on the surveillance program, the Honduran central government spent 500 million Lempiras on the mainland. San Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa, Santa Rosa, Tela and Choluteca already have such monitoring centers.

Recording video is just the beginning in a process that will turn Roatan municipalities’ public and semi-public spaces into surveillance zones. Of the 400 cameras, 370 are equipped with microphones, which can be activated. “This project will never end, as it is a smart city,” said Ing. Suazo. Several aspects of the surveillance system have not been set up, but can be completed fairly easily. According to Ing. Suazo, the CCTV cameras can also be configured to recognize the face of a person previously identified as a “person of interest” and scan other cameras across the entire surveillance system for that individual.

The high-resolution cameras are equipped with 40x zoom that can capture detail from a couple of hundred meters away. The cameras feature infrared capability for night operation. They can also activate a speaker function to alert someone visible on camera that they are being recorded and alert them that they may be committing an infraction.

Two of the cameras are located in front of Booty Bar, a popular tourist hangout in West End. “We think the cameras are a great idea. We all feel safer,” said Cherry Sorto, who has been the general manager of Booty Bar for 10 years. “Crime is growing on the island. We have our own cameras—many of them—and we have never been robbed.”

The camera system is just the first step in much bigger surveillance plans for the island. “Smart city” is a code term for mass surveillance programs, and its implementation depends on a never-ending stream of data, data storage, and data analysis. The idea of a ‘smart city’ is to collect data from cameras, electric meters, smartphones and smart appliances, and use that data to manage people.

This surveillance beast’s thirst will never be quenched, as there can always be more data to mine and analyze. If we want to be like the Dominican Republic or Cancun, we need to implement these types of systems,” said Ing. Castillo. “We are trying to catch up to them.”

Businesses Assist Home Owners in Managing Their Dreams

The Airbnb database shows around 200 rental properties on Roatan, but the majority of island homeowners who want to rent out their properties rely on intermediaries. These are medium- and small-sized, island-based home management companies that usually trace their beginnings to the early 2000s, in the early days of the internet and before online credit card processing. While some homeowners try to rent out their Roatan homes independently, doing so remotely and profitably with just one property is not easy.

The oldest property management company —Roatan Property Management (RPM)— belongs to Stella and Fran Marazzito. Stella and Fran launched their property management business in 2001 after a realtor mentioned the need for such a service at Hole in the Wall, a then-popular East End restaurant. The couple started with just a few homes in Gibson Bight. “Through word of mouth, the business grew from there,” says Fran.

After 24 years, the Sandy Bay-based RPM has a staff of seven full-time employees and manages 52 properties. “With more people buying second homes in the last few years, the property rental sector will likely continue to grow,” says Fran.

Home management companies trace their beginnings to the early 2000s.

Roatan is part of a worldwide phenomenon in which property rentals for tourists have grown at a higher rate than hotel rooms. A growing segment of travelers prefers renting a property that is bigger than a hotel room, offers a kitchen and provides a level of autonomy that a hotel stay typically cannot. “They have ‘live-like-a-local’ type of freedom,” said Mike Carter of Roatan Life Vacation Rentals (RLVR).

RLVR traces its roots to 2006, when Steve Hasz, Mike Carter, Gene DeMarco and Mark Harvey bought Roatan Life Real Estate from Phil Weir, a Realtor and longtime island resident.

Already in 2006 Carter felt that the island needed a property management rental company that offered the convenience of accepting credit cards. “It was a pain to rent homes. It was the early days, and you had to wire the money to rent the house,” Carter said. “We brought in a lot of technology and different types of banking and credit card options.”

There was an obvious niche in a growing market, and RLVR took off. “We started with zero and got one property at a time — Coral Vista and Half Moon Bay in West End, Turrets and West Bay, and the West Bay Mall condos,” Carter said.

In 2026, RLVR will celebrate 20 years of operating out of its base in Lawson Rock. The company is currently owned by Mike Carter and Steve Hasz, another longtime island resident and real estate broker. RLVR employs 27 people and manages about 100 properties. The company has the largest pool of homes and condominiums under management on the island.

About 70 of these 100 properties are available for rent year-round. Some are owned by individuals; others are part of homeowners associations. Some properties are managed for owners who don’t want to rent them out but appreciate the convenience of having them maintained and ready when they decide to visit.

Potential profitability of a rental house depends on its location and amenities.

The company focuses its rentals on the west side of the island, from CocoView in the east to West Bay in the west. RLVR properties are available for booking via the company’s website, but to stay competitive and accessible to potential clients, nearly all the properties are also listed on other hosting platforms, including Airbnb, Vrbo and Expedia.

According to Carter, the potential profitability of a rental house depends on its location and amenities. “If you don’t owe anything on the house —mortgage or loan— typically they break even or do a little bit better,” Carter said. “You have to be as good as, or better than, your neighbors at a similar price. If it’s not in a desirable location, it doesn’t compete well.”

The early starters in the island’s property rental sector continue to grow and evolve. According to Carter, all of the Roatan house management companies help each other. Most of them focus on different parts of the island, so the competitive spirit is centered on promoting Roatan as a destination, not on fighting over potential clients.

Another company with a long track record is Island House Vacation Rentals in West Bay. The company traces its origin to an Italian couple who lived on Roatan and rented houses out of Las Cúpulas in West Bay.

In 2005, Ruth Elmore bought it with a partner. “We were both working in the diving industry in West End and looking for something a little more sustainable,” says Ruth, who renamed the business Island House. Roatan in the mid-2000s was a much quieter place than it is today. “When we started, it was in a small studio office underneath one of our vacation rentals in West Bay Village,” says Elmore, who started with just four properties in West Bay Village and three in Turtle Crossing.

In 2007, Brad Volk joined Ruth as a partner, and Island House Vacation Rentals (IHVR) was born. Today, IHVR manages 45 properties, has a staff of six, and contracts 25 part-time housekeepers, gardeners and repair workers.

Home rental prices have been climbing at 3% to 5% a year, slightly ahead of inflation. Part of the expense —and a challenge— of owning a Roatan property is the upkeep. Owners have to deal with termites, bee infestations, hurricane warnings and relentless, corrosive salt. It’s definitely not for everyone and is more expensive than most people expect.

The high electricity costs make renting a house on Roatan pricey compared to its regional competitors. While Mexico or the Dominican Republic might still have cheaper rental properties than Roatan, the island offers better value than Belize or the Cayman Islands.

The Convenience of Cell Towers Also Brings Health Risks

While some people are sensitive to radiation emitted by electronic devices, most can feel negative effects only after years of exposure.

One example of a community affected by living and working within 100-200 meters of cell towers are those who live in Colonia Winston Smith, just west of Tres Flores. According to Pablo Echeverría, teacher and Colonia Smith Patronato vice president, the colonia’s residents have an abnormal incidence of birth defects. Children are born with cleft lip, many mothers have miscarriages, and there is a high incidence of tumors. According to Echeverría, five children were born with cleft lips in the colonia. Expectant mothers also suffered an abnormal number of spontaneous abortions, which Echeverría said could be attributed to the strong frequency signals emitted by the cell towers.

While proximity to the tower is one issue, another is the strength of the signal emitted by the tower’s equipment. Echeverría says that having trees or other objects between the cell tower and a home helps reduce constant exposure to the frequencies.

What made things complicated for Colonia Smith residents was that the towers predated the housing community. “The towers were here before we came,” Echeverría said.

Since the late 1990s, there was a tower on the site, and eventually both Claro and Tigo cell service companies operated towers on the tall hill. Those towers provided cell service to Los Fuertes, Palmetto Bay and Crawfish Rock. Since 2011, the colonia’s residents have been building their homes and raising their children in the shadow of two cell towers.

Things changed in 2024 when American investor James Baum bought land just north of Colonia Smith with a Tigo tower on it. Baum plans to turn his land into a high-end development featuring attractive views
of the sea to both the north and south. Cell towers are incompatible with high-end developments, so he decided to discontinue the lease with Tigo, which had operated the tower there for around 20 years.

Then there is the issue, common knowledge in fact, that cell towers negatively affect property values. Given a choice, people simply don’t want to live looking at cell towers, even if they want to see five bars on their smart phones. According to William Gati of the New York Real Estate Journal, real estate values can decrease by as much as 20%.

While living near cell phone towers can be dangerous in the long term, working on the towers can also be deadly. On April 15, a worker died in an accident dismantling the Tigo tower at Colonia Smith. After losing its lease near Colonia Smith, Tigo located a much shorter, temporary cell tower just 200 meters to the east, next to an existing home.

Working on the towers can also be deadly.

After a few more weeks, the work was complete and the original Tigo tower was finally disassembled. Colonia Smith residents breathed a sigh of relief. The only tower currently functioning there is an internet tower, which receives signals from La Ceiba and transfers them to fiber optic cables.

Some island communications professionals admit there are issues with cell towers and health. “Cell towers use spectrum and frequencies just as any household device. (…) The vibrating waves of spectrum resonate on different levels and can be both harmful and beneficial depending on the individual’s body and how close that person is to the device,” said Duane McNab, owner of MaxCom.

Balancing the convenience and health dangers of cell tower signals is a tricky issue. There is also an inherent conflict of interest among stakeholders in the cell tower business and residents. Telecommunications firms, technology companies and real estate industry players have vested interests in minimizing information about the health dangers of signals emitted from cell towers. They make their living from the convenience and prevalence of the cell towers providing those signals.

The Number and Size of Transactions is Rising

Paya Magazine estimates that Roatan’s yearly GDP is somewhere around $840 million. The island’s roughly 100,000 residents spend around $400 million in yearly personal purchases here. The island has around $65 million in cruise ship sales that stays here, and then there is the $240 million brought in by long-term tourist visitors. There is the bit smaller, but growing, $80 million in real estate transactions. To top it off, there is the yearly $60 million in construction investment.

If these numbers are close to being correct, the island’s economy approaches around $1 billion. Paya Magazine estimates that around 80% of these yearly monetary transactions are made in Lempiras, around 20% in dollars, and less than 1% in Bitcoin. These proportions and numbers have grown in the last 10 years and will continue to change.

The percentage of Bitcoin transactions is likely to increase. Bitcoin adoption on Roatan has been rising steadily since 2021. In 2021, five businesses in the Bay Islands accepted Bitcoin, with three of them on Roatan. According to Dusan Matuska, owner of AmityAge, a company that promotes Bitcoin education and adoption on Roatan, there are now over 50 businesses accepting Bitcoin as a payment. “We are helping to bring more Bitcoin users to the island who will use their holdings to purchase various good and services and also real estate,” Matuska said. “Real estate agents should get ready for it.”

The island’s economy approaches around $1 billion.

According to Matuska, over 10 real estate transactions have occurred on the island with Bitcoin so far. This is related to the price of Bitcoin surpassing $110,000, which has some Bitcoin owners cashing out. Some have converted their Bitcoin holdings to land and properties to diversify in case Bitcoin’s price declines.

There were two properties were purchased with Bitcoin just east of Palmetto Bay. Seventy-five acres and 1,100 feet of beachfront are now owned by a Bitcoin investor. “They purchased it as a land bank,” said Steve Hasz, a real estate broker whose company, Roatan Life, was involved in the sale. “They are not going to develop it.” Hasz says that 270 properties were sold on Roatan last year. That translated to $78 million, and 2024 was not even the island’s best year.

When real estate is purchased in Bitcoin, currency conversion service is typically provided by AmityAge. Transactions in Bitcoin has simplified and sped up sales as well. “You don’t really need an escrow, because you can watch the blockchain and see it convert,” Hasz said.

One exception in Bitcoin-to-Bitcoin real estate transactions is the 10% earnest money paid by the buyer as funds still should be held by an escrow company until the closing. “It may make sense to convert the earnest money as there are quite a bit taxes to pay out of the sales typically,” Hasz said. “You have capital gains, you have taxes at closings, […] attorneys’ fees.”

All the peripheral players still get paid no matter if the transaction, or part of the transaction, is done in Bitcoin. ZOLITUR gets paid, the central government gets paid, no matter what. “If you have a buyer and seller in Bitcoin it is super easy,” said Tomas Figueroa, a KW real estate agent. “If the seller wants dollars we have an operation in place.”

Two other properties were bought in Bitcoin in Lawson Rock in the last 12 months, and the agent involved in those sales was Figueroa. “Próspera and Dusan are the ones that are attracting this type of a [Bitcoin] buyer,” Figueroa said. “It’s all about marketing.”

Bitcoin has simplified and sped up sales.

Buyers and sellers using crypto currencies are not only hedging. “A lot of people who are invested in Bitcoin, it’s not a money issue [in property purchases], it is how they promote Bitcoin and adoption of Bitcoin,” Figueroa said, who expects he should complete his third Bitcoin property sale on the island soon. “Próspera ecosystem is attracting this type of buyer,” the KW agent said. “They have their own property institute, which has been recognized by law.”

While all the properties in Honduras are part of the 2005-implemented National Property Administration System [SINAP] and register a national geospatial infrastructure, Próspera has its own property registry. “The title for a Duna [tower] condo is in the Próspera registry they set out from the very beginning,” said Mike Carter, of Roatan Life Vacations Rental. Not only sales of properties in Próspera can be done in Bitcoin, Próspera also accepts Bitcoin for utility payments.

Other Roatan properties are also available for Bitcoin buyers. Fort Morgan Cay, a private resort island listed for about $10 million, is for sale in Bitcoin. “They would really like to take Bitcoin; they would prefer it, actually,” says Hasz, who represents the owners. The 27.5-acre Roatan east end property is not only historic, with the remains of a 300-year-old fort, but it also might make history if it becomes the biggest Bitcoin sale in the island’s real estate history to date.

Most Challenging BI Road Project to Date

This task came at a price. “The risk of employees working in such big cuts and in confined areas, and with cars transiting [practically] on top of them throughout the day were some of the biggest challenges,” said Devin McNab, General Manager of Elite, a company that is constructing the project. The French Harbour-based construction company, founded in 2007 and employing 350 workers, has become the island’s most experienced concrete road building firm.

The Coxen Hole project broke ground in June 2024, and McNab expects the work to conclude in June 2025. “The project seems that is going slow, but there are more than $2 million of underground [black water] infrastructure,” said McNab of the Coxen Hole black water system.

“ZOLITUR has been visionary and it’s the only institution that has looked after the [black water] problem.”

The paving of the PO-35 across Roatan’s biggest city is estimated at 59.9 million [$2.4 million] and is the most expensive per kilometer road Roatan has seen. “These 1.5 kilometers cost more than the 11 kilometers that were paved from the garbage dump to West End,” says McNab. “We are working nights. We are pouring [concrete] late nights instead of the day to alleviate the traffic.”

The project was originally designed to have bridges, but the Municipality of Roatan noticed there was an opportunity to save money by eliminating the bridges and expanding the culvert boxes in several different locations of the urban road project. There are three sections with culvert boxes, one by Serrano Hardware, another by the triángulo section, and a third by the ESBIR school street entrance. “You need to make it [Coxen Hole] more of a city than a town,” said Ing. Castillo, infrastructure chief of the Roatan Municipality.

The road crossing in Coxen Hole will consist of two 3.5 meter lanes, two bicycle lanes, and two sidewalks. “We are not cutting corners,” says McNab. The idea is for this portion – the busiest and most urban of the PO-35 road – to last 30-40 years. The PO-35 originates in West Bay and goes for 54 kilometers to Camp Bay Village.

The most expensive per kilometer road

The entire island of Roatan has been getting a vehicular road heart surgery since 2018. In 2024, the construction company Celaque has paved a concrete road from the Punta Gorda entrance east to Diamond Rock, but has not finished the portion that was supposed to reach Camp Bay village. Palmetto to Crawfish road is waiting for construction to begin this year.

The José Santos Guardiola portion of the PO-35 road is being rebuilt as well. The entire length in the contract is 7.2 kilometers. The municipality of Jose Santos Guardiola has awarded Elite a contract to construct 3 km of the road. ZOLITUR has funds for another 1.2 kilometers of the concrete road, and the central government has finally awarded Elite the three-kilometer contract from their budget.

An Island Pet Food Company Prepares for Going Regional

The origin of Cummins’ adventure with dog food goes back to 2021 during the COVID lockdowns. As his IT clients shut down one by one, he found himself with lots of free time and little income. Providence knocked on his door. “A friend had a dog with sores on his neck, and face and veterinarians agreed that this condition had to do with the pet’s food,” says Cummins. He decided to make some dog food from scratch, as no such dog food is sold on the island. “I came up with a recipe that cleared those sores in two to three weeks,” said Cummins. “And the dog loved the food.”

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” goes the proverbial phrase, and Cummins expanded his dog food experiment to feed several other dogs. All of them loved it. He purchased a mixer and began working out of his home kitchen. Cummins founded Roatan Pets in late 2020 and began selling his dog food in mid 2021.

Cummins came to Roatan in 2001 to escape a stressful job in the US and, purchased Paradise Computers internet café in Coxen Hole. In November 2002, he brought high speed internet to Roatan. Two decades later, he has refocused on a business about as far from IT as you can get. Cummins is best at generating business ideas and getting these businesses going.

I came up with a recipe that cleared those sores.

The global pet food industry has exploded in the last decade, and Cummins has discovered a niche in the growth of this industry in Latin America. He has plans to expand his small operations into a million-dollar food company within five years.

Latin America has the highest number of dog pets per capita of any region. According to Cummins, Latin Americans outspends their US counterparts $825 to $770 per year on dog food. “It’s shocking,” says Cummins.

Statista.com estimates that the US pet food market is growing in Honduras at around 6-7 percent per year, and is currently at $11 million. The dog food available on Roatan is either produced in the US, or in Guatemala. Dogui was a Guatemalan-owned brand before it was purchased by Multinational Cargill.

The commercial dry dog food that is being fed to most dogs on Roatan is inexpensive, but it can cause health, nutrition, and longevity issues in pets that eat it. “Feeding your dog commercial dried food every day is like eating at McDonalds every day,” said Cummins, who says that positive effects of switching a dog to wet food comes with visible improvements within just a couple of weeks. “I don’t know if you can repair past damage, [but] you’ll see the coat of the pet change. It will be softer, it will be glossier, and it will be shinier.”

The list of dog owners buying Roatan Pets wet dog food for Lps. 100 a pound is growing. The pet food industry is a very emotional economic sector, and its customers develop an emotional reaction to the products they choose for their dogs and cats. “For a lot of people, their pet is like their kid, it’s a child for them,” says Cummins, adding that during the COVID lockdowns, many childless couples began treating their dog or a cat as their child.

Roatan pet owners had to rely on US-made commercial dog food and slightly lighter fillers from canned food. “Generally, skin conditions are caused by fillers: corn, soybeans, or the chemicals that are in commercial dog food – preservatives or flavoring or coloring,” Mitch said about commercial dog food. “All of those are chemical additives. I think that about 95 percent of skin conditions in dogs are based on food allergies.” The dogs don’t handle chemical additives well, and their digestive systems weren’t made to handle those additives.

We try to cook everything as little as possible.

The dog food mixing and packaging operation moved from Cummins’ home basement in West Bay to a commercial space next to the new Serrano’s hardware store in French Harbour. Roatan Pets has three employees, and relies on Rosita Butcher Shop for meat scraps and Disandy for vegetables. Roatan Pets has plenty of space for processing and packaging food –there are grinders, a freeze dryer, and a dehumidifying room.

The key to making the dog food affordable is locating protein sources that are inexpensive and in plentiful supply. The proteins in his dog food selections are beef, chicken, liver, and sometimes fish. Meet scraps are obtained from the local butcher shop Rosita. Cummins determined that the cheapest nutritional chicken on the island came from the US. “That shocked me,” said Cummins. “That is the cheapest nutritional chicken I could find.”

The proteins and bones are ground up separately in a grinding machine. The calcium from the bones is beneficial to the dog’s diet. Beef, chicken, and fish are cooked separately first, and liver is added at the very end. Rice and sweet potatoes are mixed in at the last stage. Then the food is cooked again so the flavors could mix. “We try to cook everything as little as possible. So it is safe and edible for the animal,” says Cummins.

While pasteurization at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes kills all pathogens, most commercial pet food companies prefer to save time by cooking it at 400 degrees, which eliminates all the food’s nutritional value. The process is cheaper, but the pet ends up eating more to satisfy its nutritional requirements. Roatan Pets prepares its food differently – “We cook the food as minimally as we can,” says Cummins, who even experimented making raw dog food. He says that the island climate would spoil the food in about a day. The high temperature and high humidity would affect the food and the pathogens would grow.

Production in November 2024 grew to about 200-300 lbs per week, and most of his customers are subscription-based.

Roatan Pets has some customers in Utila and Guanaja, and for a while in Trujillo but no longer. Roatan Pets has five main dog food recipes, and another 40 variant recipes off those. The wet food is packaged in one, two, three, five, and ten pounds bags, and sold frozen to clients through Roatan.

Roatan Pets is exploring freeze-drying as a method to expand its production — a process that removes nearly all moisture from the food. The freeze dried food is then vacuum sealed, and has a shelf life of 20 to 25 years when the bag is sealed. Once opened and sealed back when not in use, the dog food should be good for several months. As another plus, freeze dried dog food will be much less bulky and lighter than wet food.

Another benefit to this process is that while dehydration removes about 30-40 percent of the food’s nutritional value, freeze drying retains about 98 percent. It is a 24 hour process, regardless of the quantity of the food being processed. In the end, between a quarter and one-third of a cup of freeze-dried food is needed to make a pound of dog food.

Once water is added, the food is back to its original state, before the dry freezing had been applied, in about five minutes. Once it is freeze dried, the customer base should expand exponentially.

Despite being a good retail market, Roatan is a far-from-perfect place to launch a pet food production facility. The supply chain is such that there are times that it is difficult to get certain vegetables for weeks at a time. Island rent and labor costs are also high. “Roatan was probably the worst place to start this business,” says Cummins. Virtually all the ingredients used to make the dog food come from the mainland, and the electricity powering Roatan Pet’s large machines costs four times more than on the mainland.

We are going to be selling all over Central America.

There are a few advantage of being based on the island, however. Roatan has been a good market to launch the business, and to learn the finer details. Cummins knows many people here, and in all likelihood there are several thousand dogs living on the island.

As Roatan Pets grew, Cummins realized that his business could be scaled way up quickly. “Within three years, we are going to be selling all over Central America,” says Cummins. “In four or five years we’ll be in Mexico. Once in Mexico, we’ll be in the States, in a limited way.” The future is looking bright.

A chance encounter with a dog suffering from a rash set Mitch on a path that, four years later, has him building a regional dog food business. His venture aims to provide pet owners from Mexico to Panama with high-quality, preservative- and coloring-free food for their pets.

Challenging Road Project Cuts across the Heart of Coxen Hole

The PO-35 passing across Coxen Hole is not just a national highway, it is a road that has the highest commercial use on the island and has to be integrated into the city walkways and drainage. “You need to make it [Coxen Hole] more of a city than a town,” said Ing. Castillo, infrastructure chief of the Roatan Municipality.

The road itself will be 15 meter wide with a 1.5 meter sidewalks, two meter wide cycling lanes. And finally a 10 meter wide motor vehicle road. The construction of the six month contract began in June and its goal is to be finished by Christmas 2024.

It is a road that has the highest commercial use on the island.

The new road will benefit drivers, business owners, increase land prices, create additional commercial lots, and provide a more first glance of the island four tourists arriving at the Juan Manuel Galvéz international airport. “In the end, everyone is benefiting because they have more roads and more urban spaces they can use,” said Ing. Castillo.

Whereas in other parts of the paving projects Roatan Municipality would do the groundwork and preparation for the road, and would bid out only the road paving portion of the project. This time the roadwork was too complex and coordination between the preparation and paving as well. “Given the complexity of this contract, we decided to give the entire contract to one company,” said Ing. Castillo. Elite, a construction company based in French Harbour, who won the bid for the project.

The cost of the contract is Lps. 59.9 million [$2.4 million] and the 1.5 kilometer road project is the most complex and expensive per kilometer the Bay Islands have ever seen. Part of the expense is because of the retention walls needed to be constructed at the site. “Half the road has a need for retention walls,” said Ing Castillo. Whereas prior only in French Harbour and in Los Fuertes the retention walls had to be built. Yet another expense paid by Roatan taxpayers via Roatan municipality was the supervision contract of Lps. 2.5 million awarded to Consultores en Ingeniería [CINSA].

The road rises from just a few meters above sea level at the airport to around 50 meters at its crest at Monkey hill road. The design of the new road attempts to lessen the hills and avoid blind hills. “We are trying to improve the vertical curvatures of the road,” said Ing. Castillo. “We are filling it in some spots and cutting it off in others. It is all about creating a win-win.”

The project is not just a national road construction, but building an urban road and with urban spaces that integrate the road with surrounding businesses and lots. Water and sewer systems have to be moved, and bridge boxes are being constructed instead of culverts.

Urban road project created several very happy land owners.

The urban road project created several very happy land owners. Elite has been filling in acres of land with earth that was shaved of the road. From what were some inaccessible and of little value lots, there are now very valuable commercial lots. “They get the benefit of the dirt and we get the benefit of decreasing the cost of hauling the materials to specific spots,” said Ing. Castillo. Several islanders have become millionaires

With rains and heavy construction taking place at the new municipal dump, there were changes as far as the road paving schedule. “We had an emerging situation from Kix to mud hole with the deterioration of the road,” said Ing Castillo. The Roatan municipality has begun the dirt work on the 2.3 kilometers between Kix and the dump. That is the last portion of the PO-35 that has not been bid out for paving.

Some other road projects were also delayed. One of them is the paving of the 4.3 kilometer road from Palmetto to Crawfish rock that is now planned for construction in early 2025. 750 meters from Próspera to Colonia Smith diversion has been paved and 620 meter in total from the Mall up towards Crawfish Rock.

RECO’s Newest $41 Million Investment Raises Questions and Concerns

RECO was founded in 1992 by island investors and in 2008 it was purchased by Kelcy Warren, a US billionaire ranked by Bloomberg to be the 410th richest man in the world. RECO and Roatan are a source of income for Warren who made his fortune in oil and gas pipelines. Warren also uses RECO for profitable loans, and used RECO to run a power cable to his private island of Barberetta.

Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, went from $1.7 Billion in 2016 to $6.8 billion in 2024, tripling his fortune in the last eight years.

While to the untrained eye RECO has grown in size. More accurately RECO has become a motley crew of 1990s wind turbines, island prime land destroyed for solar farms, and other potentially wrong decisions.

Ill-conceived RECO decisions have unintended consequences.

Now instead of adding another set of Wasilla LPG powered generators, RECO is adding different company generators and is not investing sufficiently in already stressed distribution system. Those decisions will not only increase energy bills of islanders, it could translate to more unstable power supply and more expense to consumers in order to remedy that.

The $41 million RECO project will consist of three propane powered Medium-speed commercial marine gas engines B36:45V by Bergen. The company awarded the contract is Sampol based in Mayorca, Spain. “Sampol designs, constructs, maintains highly efficient energy plants,” said Josu Vicandi, representing Sampol, a 90-year-old family business. “We expect to have the [RECO] system installed and working by September 2025.” The company has delivered similar projects to the Caribbean before. In January 2023, Bergen Engines and Sampol were selected for a similar project in Puerto Rico where Sampol is installing four 3.3 MW medium-speed units B36:45L Bergen Engines.

Things get complicated here. There is an issue of incompatibility between the existing Wartsila generator operating system and the new Bergen generators which have their own energy management and operating system. This issue could potentially translate into black-outs and extra costs, etc. Instead of having spare parts and components for just Wartsila generators, now RECO will have to keep a second completely different inventory for Bergen generators. “It doesn’t make good business sense to keep separate inventories for different engine manufacturers on the books. Also RECO mechanics will have to go through a whole new training cycle to familiarize themselves with Bergen, a process which took them two years with the LPG fired engines,” said Mathew Harper, RECO’s former Director of Operations.

Another not addressed issue in the $41 million upgrade is the investment in distribution infrastructure, and upgrading existing RECO cables that are already carrying high loads. RECO’s mistakes translate into more than just high energy bills for the island consumers. On March 22, a pregnant woman was killed, electrocuted by a falling, poorly installed high tension RECO wire in French Harbour. All ill-conceived RECO decisions have unintended consequences.

Spending $41 million to get 25.2 Megawatt translates to $1.6 million per Megawatt, a higher than average capital cost for LPG power. Now, if RECO has overpaid for the installation of generating capacity, this has a direct effect of how much RECO consumers will pay in their electric bills. It means that RECO customers will have to pay so much more, at double-digit-interest, to pay off the loan to Kelcy Warren.

Currently RECO has the generating capacity of 44.7 Megawatts. RECO’s LPG gas power plant is rated at 28 MW. The company also operates a windward rated at 3.9 MW and two solar plants rated at 12 MW. Its deep cycle battery system BESS has 11 MW. The new gas powered Bergen generators should increase that capacity by 25.2 Megawatt to a total of 70 MW.

While RECO has been presenting its energy sources as “clean,” things are much more complicated. The RECO investments have been a mixed bag of XXI century efficient gas technology, mistakes and ecological disasters. The 26 wind turbines on Brass Hill have been purchased used and is old, inefficient 1980s technology never coming close to generating its advertised 150 Kilowatts per turbine.

Since the wind farm project opened in 2017 there is a constant, disturbing whining sound caused by moving propellers of the wind turbines in Brass Hill and Corozal. This not only lowers quality of life for many Corozalians, but it lowers property values in Brass Hill itself.

There is another effect on the environment. Both migrating birds and local birds are killed by moving blades of RECO’s wind turbines. The scale of the bird killing has not been assessed by any island organization, but studies in the US have shown that an average wind turbine there kills between four and 18 birds per year. So in rough estimate RECO’s 26 wind turbines kill between 100 and 468 birds a year.

While RECO’s solar panels are advertised as “eco” they are far from that. There is not much “clean” about RECO’s two solar projects either. Hundreds of trees were cut down, hills were moved, topsoil of prime and scarce land was destroyed to create a desert of ugly solar panels.

Another issue is what happens to RECO solar and wind infrastructure when a Hurricane hits. Hurricanes serve as an added risk to destroying wind turbines and solar panels on an island like Roatan. High velocity winds and flying debris is likely to cause damage, and perhaps a completely destroy these installations.

Roatan’s Far East is Opening up

The actual road construction is being done by a crew of 64 workers from Constructora Celaque S. de RL., a Tegucigalpa-based construction company that began operations in 1996. Celaque has plenty of road construction on the mainland; 53 kilometers of road repaving between La Paz and San Pedro de Tutule, and repaving of a 23-kilometer road stretch from Santa Rosa to Gracias.

The six meter wide concrete road is designated as PO-35, and is being built to last several decades and accommodate growing vehicular traffic. “We prepare it very well before paving,” said Eng. Astrid González of Consultorias y Proyectos R&R [CPRR] who overlooks the quality of work being done on the project. The roads’ thick substrate has a combination of cement, sand, and rock. The actual concrete road surface is made of 8.5-inch-thick, 4,000 PSI concrete. “The life span of hydraulic concrete is 50 years,” said Eng. Héctor Pavón, also of CPRR. “As long as you give it maintenance.”

As a comparison, the white-top paving project currently done in Sandy Bay is seven meters wide, with an additional one meter sidewalk on each side. That road’s concrete surface is rated at 5,200 PSI and has a projected lifespan of 30 years.

The construction of the Punta Gorda to Camp Bay road is being funded by Honduran national funds and is estimated at Lps. 203 Million ($8.2 million USD). Central government has sent very little road construction money to Roatan’s two municipalities for the last six years.

The road work has several fronts; the main paving team began about 300 meters east of Punta Gorda. Another group is preparing substrate up the hill from Camp Bay, on kilometer seven of the construction project.

The road paving will change the life of thousands of islanders and open up the remaining 20 percent of land on Roatan on the very east of the island. The communities of Punta Blanca, Calabash Bight, Diamond Rock, Camp Bay, and Camp Bay Village will now be more easily accessible. “We estimate that 22,000 people will directly benefit from the road construction,” said Eng. Pavón.

Roatan’s east end will never be the same.

Most of land developers are happy and many island residents are happy as well. “I am amazed at the engineering. It’s over the top,” said Fernando Santana, a developer of the Aroha Estates located right on the main road about 300 meters from Punta Gorda. “It looks like a very high quality job.”

Also, a couple dozen existing resorts, housing developments, hotels, and restaurants will benefit from the 10.6 kilometer paved road. “We have seen a lot of false starts over the last 20-30 years,” said Erick Anderson, an American businessman who has lived in east Roatan since the 1960s. “I am surprised they have went ahead with the Camp Bay road before redoing, resurfacing the Oak Ridge road. It is in terrible shape now.”

Indeed, the JSG western border to Oak Ridge road is in terrible shape and has to be rebuilt. On February 8, JSG residents cut off traffic between the two municipalities for several hours, demanding that central government take action.

The paving of the final stretch of PO-35 road will no doubt transform the island; no more inaccessible land on Roatan’s far east, no more dust from the road, and no swerving side to side to avoid giant potholes. “We have to get on the development train. When I turned that page my life became a lot easier, because it is happening all over Roatan,” said Santana.

The work began on 17 October, 2023, and is expected to finish by October 2024. What started as the worst road on the island may soon become the best road on the island. It will likely be reality that drivers can stay on pavement for the entirety of the 54 kilometer national road PO-35, from West Bay to Camp Bay Village.