It’s hard to believe the Cayman Islands government hasn’t yet acknowledged that truth — and that the Progressives leadership persists in perpetuating the myth that recycling will pay for itself, and continues to propagate the panacean fantasy of a money-making waste-to-energy facility.
As most of our regular readers are aware, Health Minister Osbourne Bodden’s primary response to the incendiary situation at the George Town landfill was to create a 16-member steering committee of civil servants and political appointees, charged with rehashing the previous PPM government’s well-documented failure to find an on-site solution to Mt. Trashmore.
Now we hear that Premier Alden McLaughlin and Minister Bodden — who aren’t on said committee — have scheduled a field trip to look at solid waste facilities in the U.S. … toward what practical end, we know not.
(Recall that one of Minister Bodden’s first official acts after the May 2013 election was to spurn the Dart Group’s $60 million offer to shut down the dump and create a new landfill in the minister’s home district of Bodden Town; and that George Town MLA Alden McLaughlin’s ascension to the Office of the Premier depended on support from the four Bodden Town MLAs, obtained through Mr. McLaughlin’s assent to keep the new landfill out of Bodden Town, to the detriment of his own district.)
Hearken back to the February 2008 report by Cayman government consultants Gershman, Brickner and Bratton Inc., who advised it would cost $122 million to build a waste-to-energy facility at the current landfill site, plus about $20 million per year to operate it — about double Cayman’s solid waste budget at the time.
If our government refuses to learn from Cayman’s recent past, perhaps it will at least take into consideration the present reality in Guam, an insular U.S. territory on the Pacific Ocean that’s about three times the size of Grand Cayman in terms of population and area.
Like Cayman, Guam has a long-running dump problem caused by dearth of space, lack of standards and political interference into capital projects. Unlike Cayman, Guam’s supervisory authority — the U.S. — stepped in to assist, or, rather, instruct.
The turning point was in 2008 when Guam’s Supreme Court invalidated the Guam government’s contract with a company to build a waste-to-energy facility, following 12 years of negotiations.
At about the same time, a U.S. federal judge ordered that the Guam Solid Waste Management Division be put into receivership, and be taken over by — guess who? — consulting firm Gershman, Brickner and Bratton Inc., which was charged with shutting down Guam’s toxic dump and creating a new solid waste facility.
In September 2011, the consultant-run Solid Waste Authority opened a new landfill (with a 30-year lifespan), with the work being funded by a US$202 million bond floated by the Guam government.
The consultants’ efforts have been met by allegations of “a lot of wasteful spending,” levied by Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo, who is elected locally.
Meanwhile, the spurned waste-to-energy company took its grievances to court, where a mediation process has resulted in a new draft contract between the company and the government. As receiver, GBB challenged the new contract, estimating that building the waste-to-energy facility would require another US$234 million bond, and over 20 years the project would increase the cost of solid waste operations in Guam by nearly US$500 million.
While Cayman certainly doesn’t want to follow Guam’s lead on this issue, we suggest copying a page from their history: Turn the Department of Environmental Health (and all of government’s solid waste responsibilities) over to experts in the private sector, even temporarily, and empower them to address Cayman’s preeminent threat to environmental and human health.
Then again, that sounds like the Dart deal already rejected by Minister Bodden, Premier McLaughlin and the Progressives-led coalition.
The conundrum is this: Given the political compacts this government made in order to elevate itself into power, how can it possibly hope to deal objectively and effectively with the George Town landfill?
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Both Ozzie and Alden know they’re not going to accomplish anything with the dump during their administration. This trip as well as the fake committee that was formed are all tactics to distract from the fact the they blew of the only realistic option we had to get something done about it and have no idea what else to do. Touring sites in the US isn’t going to provide any further information then what is already publicly known about how to deal with Mount Trashmore. We can either cap it and build a new properly managed facility or we can build a waste to energy facility at the current site and mine the pile of trash of the next 20 years. The damning fact is that we cannot as a country afford either one of these options and they know it. Finding out what to do is not the problem, finding out how to pay for it is. So what they are looking for is a private company to come to Cayman and invest over 100 Million Dollars to sort out all our trash problems at no cost to the public purse hoping to recoup their investment and make a profit by selling what’s in that pile of garbage or converting it to energy to sell to CUC. I feel stupid just saying it and the PPM sounds the same way saying it.
Here’s what will happen, Alden and Ozzie will come back from the US talking of new technologies they were shown that can fix the GT dump in place, the committee will spend two years producing options we already know about and cannot afford. The PPM will get kicked out at the next election for basically doing nothing but introducing a National Conservation Law which actually means nothing. The new government which will most likely be the CDP (I had to laugh at that as well) will knock on Darts door begging for help, which he will gladly offer. However, it will surely cost more because it’s now 4 years later and his property out East is worth a lot more because of on the new highway along with things like IronWood and the Shetty Hospital, not to mention the dump will be a lot closer to exploding if it hasn’t already by then and then it be us asking for help, not him offering it.
Thanks for keeping focus on Cayman’s #1 issue.
I am certain there are countries in Central America that have enough land space to accommodate in a safe manner cayman’s garbages for a fair cost. Let’s ask them. Maybe, all garbages could be sent directly to barges. No more landfill, tractors, dust, fire, news articles about this subject, debates, studies and more……much more to come if we reach a point when climbers start coming in Cayman for it mountain.
Michael, your comment is spot on and this little jolly to the USA is exactly what happened in July 2006 when a team from CIG went on a fact finding trip to Massachusetts. History is simply repeating itself here and no one is going anywhere fast.
Check out – http://compasscayman.com/caycompass/2006/07/05/Delegation-tours-waste-sites/
Pierre, a lot a people may not realize this but I believe that shipping regular residential waste overseas is against international shipping laws. The goal of shipping your garbage out of the country is to take advantage of a country that has less strict environmental laws, or environmental laws that are not strictly enforced usually to the detriment of its own residents health and well being. Cayman needs to learn how to properly deal with their own garbage not contaminate someone else’s Island.
First,let’s start with the ‘tire pile.It’s worth nothing,you have someone on the island who wants them for fill in a developement but does not want to pay anything for them.GIVE them the tires!Bind them to a timely removal and start to make some room!
Bring in some trash compactors not overly expensive to do.Start compacting and stacking trash until there is a big enough footprint to install a modern burner and start generating electric while clearing trash.
There is zero money to be made in today’s market recycling plastic.By the time you sort it,process it,wash it,bale it AND pay to have it transported off the island you have lost money.
The cost of a recycling facility could easily exceed 3M
by the time you include a power generator,wash plant,water purification plant etc etc.
Smaller compactors could be purchased for cayman brac and little cayman,placed there,and the trash picked up periodically for the burn plant on grand.
More importantly,START NOW!