While government continues to negotiate the financial close on ReGen, work on the environmental impact assessment for the multi-million dollar waste-management project is nearing completion.
Department of Environment Director Gina Ebanks-Petrie, in a brief update, said the EIA document is currently with the consultants, undergoing revisions.
“We hope to have a final version approved early in the New Year,” she said.
In August, a draft environmental statement, which was released for public consultation, noted that the anticipated effects of the new facilities on the surrounding areas would be an improvement on the existing landfill.
The ReGen project continues to stretch on as government again missed its most recent deadline – in November – to sign the financial close.
No new updated timeline has been issued by government for the end of negotiations.
Cayman has been waiting six years for the project to get off the ground and a recent fire at the landfill once again raised questions about the status of the project.
In 2017, the Progressives-led government chose the Dart consortium as the preferred bidder on the project. In March 2021, the government signed the deal with the consortium, but the financing of the project remains under negotiation.
There has been no official word on what are the sticking points in the negotiations between the government and the Dart-led consortium.
The ReGen project will consist of nine integrated facilities, that include a waste-to-energy plant, a recycling centre and composting area, as well as a lined ‘residual’ landfill for any waste that cannot be incinerated or recycled.
There has been some debate on the cost of the project; however, it reportedly comes with a price tag estimated at over $1 billion over 25 years.
Speaking during the budget debate earlier this month, Sustainability and Climate Resiliency Minister Katherine Ebanks-Wilks said the government and the Dart-led consortium were “working diligently” to iron out the “handful” of remaining conditions still to be agreed on for the project.
She assured that the United People’s Movement government is “thoroughly committed to seeing this important national project through to completion”.
“We’re equally committed to ensuring that this deal is the best it can be for the people of the Cayman Islands. For ReGen to be truly the future of sustainable waste management in the Cayman Islands, it needs to be affordable now and in the long term,” she said.
Ebanks-Wilks, under whose ministry the project falls, said, as government continues to finalise negotiations for the project, “our main priority will be ensuring that ReGen delivers all of the intended benefits to our economy, society and environment without placing undue financial burden on our people”.
Ebanks-Wilks, who took over the ministry when former Premier Wayne Panton stepped down last month, said she will give the project her “full attention”.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure that this is indeed value for money,” she said. “This project is the largest, in terms of expenditure, that the government has ever undertaken. It has to be done right and it has to benefit the people of the Cayman Islands. I will accept nothing less than that.”
Ebanks-Wilks said the missed deadline for the financial close had nothing to do with the formation of the new government.
She said she has identified that “there is a dire need for improved communications” between the government’s project team, the minister and Cabinet, and she assured this will change.
Work on the remediation of the landfill continues, she said, and funding has been allocated in the budget for completion of phase one of the remediation.
Editor’s Note: The Cayman Compass is a subsidiary of Dart Media and Entertainment.
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Nothing is free. There is always a cost, this needs to be met but this project needs to get going. A landfill is not the way forward for a small island community dependant on tourism..especially modern eco tourists.