The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A world-renowned engineering and fire control specialist is part of a group being formed by a Bahamian financier to bid on taking over the New Providence landfill’s management, Tribune Business can reveal.

Kenwood Kerr, Providence Advisors chief executive, is working with Dr Tony Sperling, a Canada-based engineer whose biography says he has prepared 250 landfill closure plans, as he moves to put together a consortium that would address the Bahamian facility’s multiple needs.

Dr Sperling’s biography suggests he possesses the credentials necessary to tackle landfill blazes such as the one that occurred this weekend, which has driven Jubilee Gardens residents out of their homes for a week, and forced numerous businesses nearby to either close to operate with reduced staff and hours due to the potential health and environmental hazards.

Dr Sperling, the president of Sperling Hansen Associates, a “full service” landfill engineering firm, is said to have a decade’s worth of experience in landfill fire control, together with prevention, fire safety audit, reclamation and emergency planning capabilities.“Dr Sperling has been responsible for fire extinguishments and reclamation at the Delta Shake and Shingle Landfill in Vancouver, the Campbell Mountain Landfill in Penticton, and the Hesperia Landfill in Vernon,” his biography states.

“He has prepared fire response plans for Weyerhaeuser’s China Creek Landfill in Port Alberni, Tolko Forest Products Louis Landfill in Barriere, and the city of Vancouver Landfill in Delta.”

Apart from the fire fighting and remediation aspects, Mr Kerr and his group are also speaking to experienced landfill operators to potentially become part of their consortium as the New Providence landfill’s manager.

“They’re screening and looking at some four to five landfill operators in the US, Canada and Mexico to be part of the consortium,” one source familiar with the Kerr group’s plans, speaking on condition of anonymity, told this newspaper.

Tribune Business understands that Mr Kerr is proposing to include Bahamian waste services providers, including the 10-strong Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG) members, in his group as part of a comprehensive solution that would bring all key stakeholders on board.

However, it is unclear whether WRDG and its members will join Mr Kerr’s consortium or instead seek to move forward with their own offer to the Government.

WRDG, whose members include Wastenot, Impac, United Sanitation and BISX-listed Bahamas Waste, are understood to have submitted a comprehensive landfill management plan of their own to the Government.

The group’s activities, Tribune Business was told, will be guided by international engineering studies on the volume, and composition, of waste in the New Providence landfill should their offer gain acceptance from the Christie administration.

WRDG’s plan, sources said, will be heavily focused on recycling and separating different waste streams, with all green and wood waste, plus materials that can be recycled, diverted away from the landfill site itself.

The consortium is also promising to keep all current Department of Environmental Health Services (DEHS) workers currently employed at the landfill, after the Government was forced to take back operational control when Renew Bahamas pulled-out of its management contract last October following Hurricane Matthew.

Besides master planning the Tonique Williams Highway site, WRDG is also pledging to conduct the necessary fire remediation and suppression, and invest in the equipment necessary. It is also promising to enhance security, through improved fencing, cameras and security personnel, in a bid to prevent the arson suspected of causing numerous fires.

However, Tribune Business sources said trust continues to be an issue between both the Government and the Bahamian consortium when it comes to the landfill and its management.

The Christie administration is said to still be sceptical as to whether the Bahamian group has the necessary technical and financial capacity to manage the New Providence landfill, something that appears to contradict its ‘Believe in Bahamians’ mantra - especially since Renew Bahamas, a foreign-led operator, failed to prove a long-term, viable solution.

“The Government doesn’t want anyone to come in there and leave,” said one source, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggesting that the Christie administration is still haunted by Renew Bahamas’ pull-out.

But WRDG, for its part, is also especially hesitant to invest large sums of money upfront without some guarantee that it will gain the landfill management contract, especially since the Government has frequently ignored its proposals or pushed it aside in the past.

“WRDG has simply been agitating, trying to get a Letter of Intent (LOI) from the Government, so they have the necessary assurance to go out for financing,” one source close to the group said.

“No one wants to put money in, only to find they get stabbed in the back, as happened before with Renew, so the members are very leery. But a lot of people are interested in investing.

With both the imminent Baha Mar opening and general election intensifying pressure on the Government to resolve the landfill’s woes, Tribune Business was told that all parties involved - itself and potential operators - appeared to be “going in different directions”.

“Everyone thinks they know what needs to be done,” the source added.

Meanwhile, the landfill’s fire-enforced closure has left waste collection providers “overwhelmed with garbage”, and forced to store it on their properties with nowhere to put it.

“There are thousands of tonnes of waste going into the landfill every day, and it’s building up. The garbage collectors don’t have the capacity; their places are full and they have nowhere to put it,” one contact told Tribune Business.