The Department of Environmental Health still has no equipment to test air quality during and after dump fires, according to department head Richard Simms.
Simms, speaking at a press conference on Friday, a day after a large blaze erupted at the scrap-metal section of the George Town landfill, said steps were being taken to acquire air-quality sampling equipment. Similar assurances were given following the massive four-day fire at the landfill in March last year.
However, a lack of equipment to measure air quality has been a long-standing issue.
Following a major fire at the tyre section of the landfill in December 2013 and a number of other fires the following year, the then DEH director Roydell Carter told legislators in 2014 that the department planned to acquire air-quality monitors in the event of fires.
The March 2020 landfill fire was perhaps the worst seen in Cayman in recent decades, leading to the evacuation of surrounding neighbourhoods, including Lakeside Apartments and Watlers Road. Even after that fire was extinguished, residents complained for days afterwards that their homes continued to smell of smoke.
Each fire raises concerns among residents about toxic emissions from the black plumes of smoke that emit from the site.
In many instances where a fire breaks out at the dump site, the nearby Cayman International School is shut down for the day in case the toxic smokes impacts the schoolchildren there.
Simms said on Friday, “We’re looking at getting the necessary equipment to monitor air quality at the landfill, so we’re in the process of doing that.”
Asked why this had not happened earlier, he said, “The thing is we have to research the proper equipment, make sure that we have the right budget to acquire these things. We don’t want to buy just anything to do it. We’re actually looking at that right now.”
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