The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

MYLES Laroda, State Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, said it would cost more than $10m to restore two waste management sites in Abaco that have become health hazards.

He said the government spends $550,000 a month to maintain the sites.

Mr Laroda, the minister responsible for disaster preparedness, management and reconstruction, said the Davis administration was saddled with the sites, which are in Treasure Cay and Spring City.

The Spring City site was the storage and waste management site after Hurricane Dorian, but Mr Laroda said there were no provisions or tarp to protect the area, causing the water tables to become contaminated.

He said the cost of running one site is around $350,000 a month, and the cost of running the other site is $200k a month.

He said it would cost more than $10m to restore the sites to their pre-Dorian conditions.

"We just cannot leave them there," he said.

In September, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said police have been asked to investigate the construction of a hurricane shelter in Abaco, which has ballooned from $1.8m to $4m.

Yesterday, Mr Laroda said: “If you go into Abaco, you see the shelter that is being built there, and that only two years of us coming into government and to see that a structure that has started so long ago only to be restarted again because of the defective and faulty works that was done.”