The Princes Street dump continues to pose serious difficulties for persons living in its vicinity and the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) and the Guyana Citizens’ Initiative (GCI) yesterday said that the situation has the makings of a major public health catastrophe.
In a joint press release issued yesterday the organisations said that they carried out “independent investigations” and have come to the conclusion that something needs to be done immediately to bring the site under control.
Stabroek News has reported in recent weeks on the ongoing problems at Mandela landfill.
When contacted yesterday on the issue Local Govern-ment Minister Kellawan Lall said that the only solution to this problem is relocating to another site. He noted that his ministry in collaboration with other stakeholders is trying to “expedite” the establishment of a new landfill site with a loan which was garnered from the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank (IDB).
He said that a US$18M loan was contracted and a project coordinating committee headed by local government has been established. The actual implementation of the project on the East Bank is left to be done.
Lall said that he could not put a definite time limit on when the project is expected to be finished but hopes that a new site could be opened next year. The new dump site is supposed to be located at Haag Bosch, aback of Eccles.
Meanwhile the joint release said that the agencies are calling for a “two-tier” response from relevant authorities; medical intervention on an appropriate scale and the commissioning of a disaster response team comprising solid waste, environment and health experts, to generate a solution before the problem engulfs a larger area.
Minister Lall said that as it relates to short-term relief, which includes medical help for the people affected by the smoke from the dump, he would have to be in discussion with the City Hall committee which is responsible for such things in order to determine what can be done.
The joint release made reference to Mayor Hamilton Green’s comments when he stated that the city has no financial or technical resources to address the issue of the dump. The release said further that by asking that residents take their medical complaints to the Orange Walk clinic or the Lodge clinic is an indication that there will be no
medical response to this disaster.
The release expounded on the outrages faced by residents in Princes Street and other areas in the dump’s vicinity; adding that residents have attempted to make contact with several organisations including the Ministry of Health, Environmental Protection Agency and the City Council but have been met with little success.
It said that none of the authorities seems to want to accept responsibility for the dump and keep referring residents to one another. According to the GHRA and GCI release residents say that getting help from the Guyana Fire Service is also proving to be difficult as the first set of firemen who ventured into the dump to put out fires had to battle long illnesses and other officers now refuse to enter the dump site.
Stabroek News paid another visit to the dump yesterday afternoon and the thick smoke emanating created the illusion of a fog, especially in the north east area.
“Fed up”
Residents told this newspaper that they are “fed up” with the issue. “We complaints falling on deaf ears,” one resident said.
Stabroek News had reported in recent weeks on the fires and resulting smoke at the dump at the time residents had complained bitterly of the thick smoke they have to inhale on an almost daily basis. They had said that all sorts of things-including human remains and asbestos- were being dumped and burned for their inhalation.
Green had said in an invited comment that discontinuation of dumping garbage there is not likely to happen within the next two years. He said too that the constant fires and subsequent thick smoke is a result of constant combustion that occurs some 20-30 feet below. He reiterated that there is no technology on the local shores to effectively deal with this type of thing.
The mayor had said also that asbestos is indeed being disposed of at the dump but in a “separate cell.” And because of the asbestos, municipality workers had shown a reluctance to work at the dump resulting in the ‘smoking’ getting out of hand. However yesterday there were a few municipality workers trying in vain to control the situation with a pump and hose.
One of the workers told Stabroek News that they are expecting an excavator to “turn up” the refuse and then spray water. The same thing was being done several weeks ago when Stabroek News had visited.
Actual bursts of flames were also evident in a couple of areas yesterday afternoon.
Further Lall said yesterday that Local Government is in dialogue with NDCs to find sites to relocate other landfills since it is becoming “an increasing challenge” to deal with the additional loads of garbage being put out by households recently.
2001
In December 2001, Stabroek News had done a feature on the threat posed by the Mandela landfill and the stalled project between Guyana and the IDB for a new site. There were fears even then that there could be calamitous explosions from methane gas.
Mayor Green had been quoted then as saying that the situation was “distressing and unacceptable”.
He had stated then that he had written to the President airing concerns over the waste situation and the delayed project “to get the thing moving.”
