Dump protesters still seeking documents

(CNS): Activists in the district of Bodden Town fighting the relocation of the landfill to the district hit out at government and Dart this weekend over their failure to produce key documents. A spokesperson for the Coalition to Keep BT Dump Free said none of their questions or requests for information had been answered and a planned meeting between the campaigners and their MLA and cabinet minister Mark Scotland has still not been set. “We remind Government and Dart that they still haven’t answered a single one of our questions, or produced any of the documents we asked for,” Vincent Frederick, a leader of the coalition said, adding that the people have a right to know.

The coalition believes government and Dart have chosen their site in advance of any study or consultation, and regardless of the consequences for the residents, businesses and environment of our despite claims a study was conducted.

On the ForCayman Investment Alliance website which is Dart’s promotional portal for the proposed deal it intends to enter into with government which includes the relocation of the landfill, the firm talks about a study which had identified a 110 acre site, between Breakers and Midland Acres, as being the most suitable location for the new site. However, the coalition said their members have asked to see the study, but it has not been made public.

“Government has also broken their promises to the Coalition,” Frederick stated as Scotland had failed to convene a meeting with the activists despite their requests and his own suggestion. The coalition also said that Scotland too had spoken about others studies regarding relocating the landfill and although campaigners had asked to see them more than four months later, nothing has been received.

Gregg Anderson another coalition leader issued a warning about the proposed project for Bodden Town as he said the recent flyer circulated by the group features a ‘master plan’ but this is not what Dart will be building.

“The diagram in the flyer is in fact a ‘conceptual image’ of ‘potential future phases’, and not ‘Phase I’ which Dart would build,” he said.  “This ‘first phase’ does not include eight engineered cells as shown in the FCIA flyer. There is no yard waste composting area, no hurricane debris management area, no bailing and transfer station, and certainly no waste-to-energy facility. What Bodden Town would in fact be getting has a single ‘landfill cell’ at its core, at which the island’s trash would be dumped, piled up, and left there,” he added.

Operations of the new facility will still be the responsibility of government and with the current funding issues the coalition members said government does not have the money to create the eco-waste-management park that has been talked about.

“The same operators who currently run the GT landfill will operate the BT landfill with the same guidelines of covering the fill on a daily basis as they are meant to do today. Why are we expected to believe that the same operators are going to suddenly do things differently from what they currently do. And how much extra funding will the new facility get from government to guarantee it will not turn into another GT landfill within the next decade?” asked Anderson rhetorically.

The Coalition has repeatedly asked to see the proposed government operating budget, and the source of funding, but again it has not received any answers members said. Once phase one is completed the activists believe the new dump will be forgotten by Dart and left to the same people who the campaigners say have mismanaged the present dump since 1983.