While the ReGen solid waste project at the George Town landfill remains in limbo, an environmental management plan for the facility cannot be finalised, the National Conservation Council has heard.
An environmental statement for the waste-management initiative has been drawn up, but the next step in the environmental impact assessment process – the environmental management plan – is “not yet a complete document”, Director of the Department of Environment and member of the National Conservation Council Gina Ebanks-Petrie has said.
In her update on the EIA process involving ReGen at the conservation council meeting on Wednesday afternoon, she said this was because ReGen had advised they could not finalise the plan as “the project itself has not reached financial closure”.
A financial closure of the deal has been repeatedly delayed, with several deadlines being passed since the Progressives-led government chose the Dart consortium as the preferred bidder on the project in 2017. In March 2021, the government signed the deal with the consortium, but the financing of the project remains under negotiation.
The ReGen project will include a waste-to energy plant featuring a 158-foot high ventilation stack – roughly the size of a 10-storey building – as well as a boiler house and waste bunker.
She added that the Environmental Advisory Board set up to review the potential environmental impacts of the project has “no input or knowledge” of the financial elements of the deal.
“We were told by the ReGen that they couldn’t finalise the environmental management plan at this point because the project has not reached completion,” the director said.
“So, what we accepted was that the draft environmental management plan that was appended to the environmental statement is a high level review of the implementation of the mitigation measures that the environmental statement recommended, and we have requested that we continue to be involved to further reviews to finalise the environmental management plan.”
A timeline and a list of who is responsible for the various mitigation steps have yet to be outlined, she added.
Once the final environmental management plan has been completed, the Environmental Advisory Board will make recommendations to Cabinet, which will decide if the project will go ahead.
Editor’s Note: The Cayman Compass is a subsidiary of Dart Media and Entertainment.
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