The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

ENVIRONMENT Minister Kenred Dorsett yesterday said the fire that occurred at the New Providence landfill two weeks may have been caused by people “wanting to find a bit of scrap metal” at the site and that he had been authorised by the Prime Minister to increase security.

Mr Dorsett’s comments came almost two weeks after officials said the fire was started due to a “concentrated arson attack on the site and facilities”.

Last week, officials told The Tribune that investigations were not yet completed but that the fire was “80 per cent” extinguished.

Mr Dorsett expressed disgust at what he called an “ongoing problem of arson at the landfill and an inability to identify the persons who access it to light the fires”.

He also said the fire would not deter the government “in any way, shape or form with respect to the reforms that we see necessary for landfills not only in New Providence but all of the Family Islands”.

“It is really a tragedy that you have some Bahamians who feel it necessary to subject an entire nation to that kind of toxic air, all for wanting to find a bit of scrap metal on a landfill,” Mr Dorsett said. “I mean it’s a 300-acre facility that is bounded by some private property, and sometime is a challenge in monitoring every single point of access to the landfill. My heart goes out to everyone who was subjected to this. The Prime Minister has given me to authorisation to how we could really ramp up security.

“I really wish to appeal to the better side of ourselves as brothers and sisters in The Bahamas and ask people to please discontinue this. It makes no sense. We threaten the tourism product, we threaten the lives of our people by being subjected to inhaling those toxic fumes associated with it, and it happens at a time where for the first time we’ve made a major shift in trying to advance recycling at the landfill and remediation. The bottom line is we experienced a fire in large measure since they took over, but they had fires at different sections of the landfill and even a fire at the new materials recycling facility which was under construction.”

According to officials, the fire started at 11pm on January 17, on the northern side of the property and within an hour it was “rapidly spreading”. Shortly afterwards officials said another fire started “in a completely separate part of the site,” but they were “satisfied” that it wasn’t spreading.

A day later, Renew Bahamas, the solid waste management company responsible for operating and managing the landfill, released a statement, saying its “sources and surveillance” indicated that individuals “entered the landfill after sunset (on Saturday) and deliberately started the fire”.

Two days after the fire started, residents in areas surrounding the landfill expressed anger about the recurring, vexing problem.

Last week, Andrew Knowles, Renew Bahamas head of communications, told The Tribune that the part of the landfill that was producing the most smoke had already been taken care of, and that the entire fire was 80 per cent extinguished. He also stated that Renew Bahamas would be seeking to bolster its security personnel to “prevent these types of things from happening in the future”.

Mr Dorsett said the fire would not deter the government. “The recycling culture will in fact not be affected in The Bahamas, we are going to be looking for the creation of more material recycling facilities, waste to energy will happen in The Bahamas at some point in time, because the objective at the end of the day is to move where there is zero landfills in The Bahamas or close to it,” he said. “That has to be the ultimate objective of this government and successive governments.”

Fires at the New Providence landfill have been a persistent problem for years. Last March, a fire burned at the dump for several weeks, causing school closures and discomfort for nearby residents.

Fire Chief Superintendent Walter Evans has urged people living near the landfill, such as residents of Gladstone Road and Victoria Gardens, to “seek medical attention” if experiencing ill effects from smoke from the site.