Smoke rising from the New Providence Landfill on Tuesday last week. Photo: Heather Carey
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Staff Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
AFTER the New Providence landfill was hit by two fires in a week, a local physician raised concerns about the long-term effects of its toxic fumes.
The latest blaze began on Monday last week in what Renew Bahamas believes was an act of arson.
During an appearance on Guardian Talk Radio on Friday, one physician warned that the toxic fumes could be harming people’s health.
Dr Arlington Lightbourne, owner of the Nassau-based Wellness Clinic, said: “First of all, we don’t know what’s burning. We have no idea what the immediate effect is.”
He said it could take years before Bahamians fully understand the consequences of being exposed to “potentially poisonous clouds of billowing gray smoke.”
“The average-sized person takes 24,000 to 28,000 breaths a day,” he said. “We breathe the weight of a 10-year-old child in a 24-hour period.”
“Ten-year-old children take in more air because their oxygen needs are greater than that of an adult, and their symptoms might take years to manifest,” he said.
“Lot of effects take 20 years to develop. You can be 10 today and then at 30 be diagnosed with cancer. How do you make the connection between the diagnosis with what’s happening at the dump now? Think about those people who live near the dump.”
Meanwhile, Romauld Ferreira, environmental attorney and director with Save the Bays, pushed back on the notion that the dump should be relocated.
“The dump is perfectly located in the centre of the island,” he said. “The problem is that subdivisions were allowed to be built next to the dump. If you have a dump and the government approves it (subdivision) to be built, then you will have this conflict.”
He said lack of money is the reason people in the area aren’t putting up a fight against the government for having put their subdivision so near to the dump.
“You’re dealing with everyday people who don’t have money for (law) suits,” he said. “It takes years to establish personal injury for a class action lawsuit and a lot of testing.”
“Combustion is going on so there’s a production of methane and there’s no segregation of waste so once you get a spark, you’re burning methane. Methane can be vented to stop fires or can be used as energy. The city dump is not engineered for that. The built environment is not there, hence we have these fires from time to time.”
Comments
Sickened 8 years, 1 month ago
In a (very small) way I hope that this is burning when these +4,000 foreign dignitaries and delegates visit Baha Mar's conference center next month(?). I woke up to this smell this morning and it's disgusting. Renew has got to do better in dealing with the putting the fire out as well as stopping the supposed 'arsonists'. Our food causes enough cancer... we don't need to get it from the air we breathe as well.
jus2cents 8 years, 1 month ago
This is the health outcome of solid waste burning: cancers -stomach, colorectal, liver, larynx and lung cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, kidney and bladder cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, childhood cancer, birth outcomes -congenital malformations, low birth weight, multiple births, abnormal sex ratio of newborns, respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal symptoms or diseases etc. etc. etc.
Basically mass murder-
Emac 8 years, 1 month ago
According to Einstein, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If the people and businesses that live and operate in this area choose to sit back and let whoever is responsible for the dumb kill them, then so be it. Talking about it is NOT resolving the issue. Simply take action and close the damn dump down. You paid money for your homes, you deserve to live a healthy life just like the crooked officials. I bet you this matter would have been resolved if any government official was being affected by it.
asiseeit 8 years, 1 month ago
The dump fire and it's smoke is POISON, and your elected officials do not care!
Mmantle7 8 years, 1 month ago
Why can't we just have a World Class Recycling Program. The Dump will never go away but what we can recycle will.
Sickened 8 years, 1 month ago
The first step would be to hire people who care about The Bahamas and have experience, to run the dump. These renew people have no idea what they are doing or how the dump was created and maintained over the last 40+ years. The people who know the most and care the most were not given the contract. A six month old company was given this contract and we can clearly see (pardon the pun) how well they are doing.
sheeprunner12 8 years, 1 month ago
PUT THE DUMP ON Andros ............. and the jail and the university and the Haitians and the Chinese ............... just give that island to all who wants a piece of the government ......... so the criminals, nerds, Haitians and Chinese can collaborate and fed the rest of us
isabella 7 years, 11 months ago
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