Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett suggested yesterday that Ministry of Environment officials has their work cut out for them as it will take five to seven days before they stream waste in the landfill again.
Mr. Dorsett spoke to a team of reporters at the Office of the Prime Minister after the government called an official press meeting to address the country’s most widespread inferno in decades.
“The landfill is currently closed with respect to incoming waste, we are going to resume activities on Wednesday morning, we are conducting drone aerial pictures throughout the course of the day, monitoring hotspots we will make a determination later on this afternoon as to where new incoming waste streams will go,” he said.
Minister Dorsett reminded Bahamians that the fire was not an effect of the landfill, but as a result of a burning bush that spread over to the dumb yard, subsequently requiring there to be a much bigger fix than the remediation of the landfill solely.
“It’s not going to be a quick fix and it’s not going to be an easy fix, while we are going to be bringing in thousands of loads of fill, there will be smoke emanating from the area for the next five to seven days,” Mr. Dorsett continued.
“We are fighting a fire at the dumpsite, but we are also fighting forest fires which requires a different specialty and a different approach to fighting those fires.”
Minister Dorsett says a quick remediation requires the right partnership as they have already approved a proposal from Carl Palacious and the Palacious engineering team, but they are awaiting funding for the proposed execution of the plan.
“Whomever is selected for the landfill will be a two-fold approach, operations and remediation and obviously remediation is incredibly vast, obviously dealing with a 400 acre footprint of a landfill with some constructed cell and some areas,” Minister Dorsett said.
Residents of the Jubilee Gardens area, who were told to evacuate expressed their frustration at the governments lack of initiative in remediation of the landfill as it has been expressed from Member of Parliament for Tall Pines Leslie Miller addresses the issue as ongoing for more than 25 years.
When Minister Dorsett was asked about the lack of initiative, he gave insight into the pilot project the government formed with Renew Bahamas.
“When we ventured into the relationship with Renew, we indicated it was a pilot project the national energy task force assembled buy the prime minister looked at the issue of waste to energy, at the time the government at over 67 unsolicited proposals for waste to energy,” Minister Dorsett said.
“That task force headed by MPS Kameel Johnson and the member of parliament for Bamboo Town made a recommendation that waste to energy would not be something they would recommend the government look at, but we needed immediate attention to recycling the remediation of the landfill.”
Minister Dorsett says he was proud of the project and considers it to be a successful one, as it was recognized globally.
“They commended us for being the first country to create the first large scale commercial materials recycling facility. But the fire that then consumed that morphed a few years ago, things went downhill with Renew.”
“Renew admitted their fiscal regime was not one that allowed them to sustain itself.”
