Late last year, after vigorous debate and eventual compromise, Cayman Islands lawmakers unanimously passed a National Conservation Law.
The intent of the law is to safeguard the country’s pristine land, protect endangered plants and animals, and ensure the marine environment remains teeming with life. In discussions leading up to the passage of the law, much attention was placed on regulating the activities of commercial developers.
However, the single greatest threat to Cayman’s natural environment isn’t development – it’s the George Town landfill.
Government consultants assessed the situation in 1992 thusly: “There is no liner system under the solid waste in the existing landfill, and contamination from the solid waste can migrate from the landfill through the groundwater to contaminate the environment. There is also no surface water management system to control run-off from the landfill. “Contamination is leaving the site through the groundwater and surface water, entering the canal system, and eventually reaching the North Sound.”
The problem was identified more than 20 years ago. Still, successive governments have done nothing to address it.
In a report released last year, Dart Group consultants re-examined the environmental impact of the dump, finding that little had changed over the decades apart from the immensity of the trash heap.
“Toxicity issues at the existing landfill present a threat to the aquatic health of North Sound, and also may have an impact on the recreational use of North Sound by residents and tourists,” the consultants said.
Further, the series of dikes and ditches that carry pollutants from the landfill to the North Sound, according to the consultants, “cannot be significantly modified” because they provide drainage for other parcels in the area.
In other words, as long as the unlined landfill is at its current location, toxic pollution will continue to spew into the North Sound, one of the country’s most precious natural assets.
Exactly how much damage is being done to the North Sound? Just as it seems for every question about specifics of the landfill, the truthful answer is “Nobody knows for sure.”
As part of the 2013 report, consultants looked at water quality data over the past decade from stations located throughout the North Sound, including where the ditch from the landfill empties into the ocean.
Consultants linked “high nutrient concentrations” at the mouth of the landfill’s ditch to “phytoplankton blooms that may be adversely affecting the ecology in this portion of North Sound.”
Additionally, in 1991 government consultants analyzed plant and tissue samples near the landfill’s ditch, finding evidence of low levels of heavy metals.
Dart’s consultants warned that in the long term, those types of pollutants have a significant potential to “bio-accumulate within species in North Sound” – meaning that, over time, as larger creatures devour smaller ones, toxic substances (such as mercury) can build up in species at the top of the food chain, eventually rendering them unsuitable, even deadly, for human consumption.
The new National Conservation Law gives the Department of Environment, National Conservation Council and Cabinet the authority, the imperative and the obligation to stop the landfill from contaminating the marine environment of the North Sound. The new law also frees up $50 million to be used for conservation purposes.
In 2011, Dart estimated it would cost $32.5 million to close and remediate the landfill, and $26.5 million to build the first phase of a new solid waste management facility.
The government should empty the conservation fund and banish the environmental menace of the George Town landfill once and for all.
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Calling this a landfill is like calling Mount Rushmore a big rock.
For so long, people have been crying that the most important issue to deal with is the dump. Cries were not heard and pipe dreams of another type became more important such as building new schools as a means to change attitudes toward education. Another blunder.
Bring in those who know what they are doing and talking about instead of continuing to rely on the opinions of politicians who do not.
The problem is so big and out of control that it is really hard to imagine what the solution could be. I don’t think that the waste to energy incineration technology, able to eliminate 100% its byproduct-dioxin,even exists. Dioxin is the monster of unimaginable proportions. And there is no escape from it.
If you believe that solid waste incineration is the solution here, read this.
If you are concerned about health implications of the existing dump as it is, see what you say after you read about DIOXONS.
If you know nothing about DIOXINS, read this.
Dioxins and furans are some of the most toxic chemicals known to science.
Waste incineration systems produce a wide variety of pollutants which are detrimental to human health. Such systems are expensive and does not eliminate or adequately control the toxic emissions from chemically complex solid waste. Even new incinerators release toxic metals, dioxins, and acid gases. Far from eliminating the need for a landfill, waste incinerator systems produce toxic ash and other residues.
The waste-to-energy program to maximize energy recovery is technologically incompatible with reducing dioxins emissions. Dioxins are the most lethal Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) which have irreparable environmental health consequences. The affected populace includes those living near the incinerator as well as those living in the broader region. People are exposed to toxics compounds in several ways:
* By breathing the air which affects both workers in the plant and people who live nearby;
* By eating locally produced foods or water that have been contaminated by air pollutants from the incinerator; and
* By eating fish or wildlife that have been contaminated by the air emissions.
Dioxins are environmental pollutants. They have the dubious distinction of belonging to the dirty dozen – a group of dangerous chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants. Dioxins are of concern because of their highly toxic potential. Experiments have shown they affect a number of organs and systems.
Once dioxins have entered the body, they endure a long time because of their chemical stability and their ability to be absorbed by fat tissue, where they are then stored in the body. Their half-life in the body is estimated to be seven to eleven years. In the environment, dioxins tend to accumulate in the food chain. The higher in the animal food chain one goes, the higher the concentration of dioxins
Again the facts are stated for everyone to read and again they will be ignored. Still no word from the CIG on how they plan to fulfil their campaign promise to fix the GT Dump issues on site. It sickens me to see that no one seems to take this seriously. People can get together to protest about closing an old road to get a new one that’s twice the size and twice as good or to to keep Bodden Town dump free or even allowing foreigners to work here but no one has the time or desire to protest about why our leaders are doing nothing about this cancer on our landscape. I don’t think anything will change until the first three legged baby is born, but it will be too late by then if it’s not already.
The good thing here is that the issue is being discussed and opinions are being expressed. People do care and out of collective minds the right solution will emerge. Make Grand Cayman a boutique destination and not another Wal-Mart. And start with the dump, not a cruise berthing port. If necessary, a new, temporary dump clean-up tax could be enacted to attract the best experts in the world. And not just the experts. Just look at what 19-year-old student Boyan Slat came up with to remove 20 billion tonnes of plastic from the world’s oceans. The babies that are being born today come pre-wired with NEW IDEAS how to maintain this planet’s balance. Balance and harmony is the essence of this world’s design. The economy is not based upon the stuff of the earth, it is based upon the resources of the ideas. When as economist, or as a spender or as a receiver, or as a flower of money, when you come to the astonishing personal realization that economics is not about the stuff of the earth, it is about the ideas, now you step into a whole other place where all things are possible, and then you become to discover the ridiculousness of squabbling over the stuff because you would never want to squabble over an idea, while plenty of people do, but there still many more ideas yet to come. Squabbling over resources or squabbling over ideas only puts a shadow around you that keeps you from the next discovery. Ideas create financial worlds. Huge amounts of money, an enterprise and businesses that are happening today were not even possible 20 years ago because the ideas were not even there.
So keep the discussion open, express your point of view and allow others to express theirs. Be solution oriented.