The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

AS he defended the government’s work in reaching a long-term solution to blot out recurring fires at the New Providence Landfill, Environment Minister Romauld Ferreira placed blame on former dumpsite managers – Renew Bahamas – for the conditions at the site, which have caused three separate blazes in less than a year.

The most recent of these on Saturday left fire services officials scrambling for control as smoke blanketed surrounding areas. Up to press time yesterday, head of the division Chief Superintendent Walter Evans said the dumpsite, which caught fire on Saturday, was still smoldering.

Noxious smoke billowed into surrounding communities in western New Providence and could be seen hovering over the luxury Baha Mar resort on West Bay Street yesterday afternoon.

Officials have been tending to this current fire by “teasing apart the hot spots as well and applying water and fill,” the minister said.  

This latest incident has left many, including residents of Jubilee Gardens, questioning what Mr Ferreira has done since taking over the ministry to effect long term change at the landfill.

One of his critics is Raise Awareness about the Bahamas Landfill (RABL) spokesperson Heather Carey, who suggested Mr Ferreira has been silent and ineffective, as she called on Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis to remove him from the post or transfer management of the dumpsite to the Ministry of Health.

She charged yesterday that the prime minister promised to remove nonperforming government ministers, insisting Mr Ferreira should be the first minister who should fall into this category.

However, in the face of this perception, Mr Ferreira, who was a guest on a 96.9 FM radio show, said landfill issues have remained one of the priorities of the government.

He said 18 entities have expressed interest in managing the landfill. The government anticipates having the new entity take over management by May 2018.

In his national address last night, the prime minister said once the government is informed of the results, it will report which firm was selected to enter into an agreement to manage, deconstruct and operate the landfill.

“Prior to the Department of Environmental Health Services managing the New Providence Sanitary Landfill it was being managed by Renew Bahamas and that was a complete disaster and that was a private entity,” Mr Ferreira said as a guest on “Z Live” with host Zhivargo Laing.

“The way they managed the landfill contributed in large part to the size scope intensity of the last blaze, the one before I think it was March 2017, which engulfed I think it was 90 per cent of the landfill.

“This particular fire incident impacted about 20 per cent of the new tipping area that had the whole cone on fire and that was in large part due to the way they managed it. So if you compare what they did to what the Department of Environmental Health Services has done, because remember they left and so it’s like night and day, so that doesn’t mean anything unless we have a solution.”

Renew walked away from managing the dump site in October 2016.

He also said: “We have resolved to solve the big environmental challenges facing the country and the challenge with the New Providence Sanitary Landfill is perhaps one of the biggest adding that along with Clifton Pier and maybe some others and so we devised a long term and a short-term strategy in order to be effective in this regard.

“The long-term strategy was to find private interests that would deconstruct, remediate and take over the operations at the New Providence Sanitary Landfill. Remember now when we came to office an exercise like that had previously been done there were two respondents and of course we made a decision as a government that we would revisit the process.

“In November of 2017 we issued the expressions of interest. They were issued into the newspaper and the closing date was the 15 of December 2017. They were opened on January 3, 2018 and we had 18 entities express interest in taking over the operations and responding to request for proposal that would come out later.

“The evaluation of those expressions of interest was completed actually last week, the week of the 22 to 26 of January 2018.

“Unfortunately during the course of these events, even though we had already had a long-term solution in train a fire erupted at the New Providence Sanitary Landfill and that would have been Saturday.

“We propose and anticipate by the end of this week the persons that have been shortlisted as a result of the evaluation, this is all in keeping with our long-term strategy. Our long-term strategy is to end the fire incidents, to end it, nothing else is going to be acceptable to the Bahamian people and this is what we have committed to do to end it.”

For her part Ms Carey said she is concerned and disappointed by the government’s handling of the landfill, adding there has been a failure to constantly cover and compact the site.

She said: “. . . This past week we knew these fires were coming we could tell, we could smell it, there was a change in temperature it was that time of year you could see that they weren’t compacting and covering.

“We had started to make a scene about it and then I believe on Thursday they came in with a compactor, which was too little too late. So what this shows is that even under a new minister no one seems to be taking this seriously enough because this could have been prevented. They can blame it on arson or whatever they want to blame it on, the bottom line is its not being managed effectively because if there were covering and compacting there wouldn’t be anything to burn to this level.”