The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

TIMOTHY Hodge met a putrid scent and 95 acres of open garbage when he arrived at the city dump a year ago, the byproduct of years of mismanagement.

Yesterday he led Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis on a tour of the revamped site, now called the New Providence Ecological Park, prompting Dr Minnis to say: "What I see today is a miraculous transformation."

Garbage now occupies just eight acres of the 300-plus acre area. Having reduced fire risks, officials are gearing up for new initiatives like recycling cans, glass, plastic and aluminium, as well as composting and managing hazardous materials. On March 15, they will mark the one-year anniversary since Providence Advisors/WRDG Consortium began remediating and operating the site.

Chairman Felix Stubbs said about $10 million has been spent to transform the landfill. He said the requirements have been labour and capital intensive. "It takes awhile to make a pay-back but we have to do the work upfront," he said, adding that shrubs will be planted on the site's many acres of wasteland.

Mr Hodge, the project manager, said staff have worked 12-hour days to make progress.

"We consolidated everything in as small a footprint as possible, compacted it, squished it to get it to better shape and to get the oxygen out of it and then we covered it," he said. "That's the primary response on any sort of contaminated site to get everything contained and under control. You're worried about vectors, which could be smell, fire, dogs, scavengers, leaking out the bottom, emissions from the top, by capping, closing and containing it.

"We imported about 40,000 (yards of cover) material from off-site and we reused about 20,000 to 30,000 yards onsite for the same project so getting everything capped, contained and controlled was really the main push of phase one and that's where we find ourselves now. The result is a great reduction in fire risk, great reduction in smells, mosquitoes and flies and everything else, all the above so what you find today is a much more humane site, a much more secure site."

Twenty-four hour security has reduced the number of vagrants at the site. "The biggest thing we've done is get all the garbage covered," Mr Hodge said. "There's a lot less reason to be here now and historically when everything was uncovered there were a lot more things to scavenge and work on and trade and swap and that's just doesn't exist anymore."

The landfill now employs between 55 and 70 people.

"Most importantly," Dr Minnis said, "lots of Bahamians are employed. I was impressed that there is a Bahamian who has a PhD in this type of facility and he was recruited and is working here so it shows that Bahamians have the capacity if given the opportunity and I am pleased that they were given the opportunity and as we move forward, I want Bahamians to be given opportunities even more."

Don Saunders, MP for Tall Pines, said the transformation of the site is a boost for community residents who were continually worried about fires. Now, he said, they can look forward to better valuation of their properties after years of worrying about the opposite effect.