The George Town dump problem is so massive, its repercussions so dire and its solution so consequential, that it should not be delegated to a single government department or even ministry.
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| The Cayman Islands Landfill |
No, fixing the landfill necessitates a coordinated effort that includes all elected members, not just those who occupy Cabinet seats, and should be conducted under the aegis of a key elected member, ideally Premier Alden McLaughlin himself who, after all, represents the district currently housing the landfill.
Importantly, bureaucratic borders and boundaries must be lowered or eliminated in order for this government to mount a unified effort to solve, once and for all, this decades-old problem. It makes no sense to us, for example, that the Department of Environmental Health (in Minister Osbourne Bodden’s portfolio) has jurisdiction while the Department of the Environment (in Minister Wayne Panton’s portfolio) has no substantive role to play.
In addition, in order to find and administer a remedy for the biggest single threat to the Cayman Islands’ environmental and public health, the government must immediately begin a process that is open, transparent and ensures the country is obtaining the proverbial “value for money.”
Further, any requests from the government for solutions should not contain any preconceived, political or parochial restrictions, such as focusing disproportionately on waste-to-energy technology or insisting that a new facility be kept out of a particular electoral district. This issue is too important for that kind of nonsense.
Notions such as turning billions of pounds of trash into millions of dollars for these islands are fanciful and should not substitute for serious research, deliberation and debate. The dump should not be thought of as a potential profit center or an alternative to the high cost of CUC bills. Being realistic, it will almost certainly cost every resident of this island a substantial levy to remediate. The days of dodging sanitation fees are about over.
(That is, unless the PPM reneges on its renunciation of the Dart Group’s offer to close and remediate the dump and create a modern, lined landfill in far east Bodden Town – for free. We believe that to be rather unlikely, given the necessary support of the four PPM members from Bodden Town to continue Mr. McLaughlin’s majority government. Alternatively, the government should consider allocating the nearly $50 million in the Environmental Protection Fund to resolving the landfill issues.)
If the government is seeking a template for procuring a workable solution to the landfill issues, it need look no further than the framework it is employing in the pursuit of a cruise dock in George Town.
Specifically, procuring a waste management project of this magnitude should have the blessing of the U.K., incorporate expert advice upfront and follow a timeline set out at the beginning of the process.
The government’s initial outline for finding a solution to the George Town landfill need contain only three criteria:
Assess and address the hazards currently posed by the landfill to human health, the environment and quality of life.
Create a new facility that eliminates the possibility of a new Mount Trashmore emerging in the future.
Follow the guidelines contained in the U.K.’s Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, most importantly, no new government borrowing.
Given the enormity and complexity of the waste management project, we believe the government will find those restrictions to be challenging enough, even without entertaining fairy-tale fantasies of turning trash into gold. More
Given that all districts of Grand Cayman utilize the landfill I do not understand how any district can object to it being in their district. Unless of course they want to stop using the George Town landfill and create their own? Editor.
