Arsenic has contaminated 14 acres of land from the post Hurricane Ivan cleanup and still no compensation has been awarded after ten years!

In 2004, Charles Powell, a chief fire officer, offered up his Frank Sound land as a temporary debris clearance site. This was because the private sector company, MC Restoration, and the government’s own departments needed somewhere to process the debris created by the storm that was of enormous quantity.

Powell said his agreement was that he would be employed as the manager and would receive 50% of the processed materials that could be used as fill. When the work had been completed all hazardous materials would be removed and the land returned to its previous state.

However, nothing went according to plan. Disputes arose over Powell’s pay and what could and what could not be processed. Then MC Restoration and government did not remove the remaining debris.

To make matters even worse some of the debris was burnt and after the ash had been mixed with soil and sand it was spread over the 14 acres of Powell’s land. It was then discovered the land had been contaminated with arsenic because of the burning.

Now the land has to be cleaned up, as it cannot be sold because of the contamination.

In the Cayman Islands Water Authority latest report (2015) on the property it states there is “between 96.9 parts to 42.4 parts of arsenic in the soil and ash spread on the site”. The safe level for arsenic is only 0.01 parts!!

Finally there is some action and the Cabinet Office submitted the following:

“The outstanding matter relating to Block 55 Parcel 57 was brought to the attention of the current Cabinet Secretary by the property owners in October 2013. Thereafter, a site visit was conducted by a small team from the Cabinet Office on Wednesday 4th December 2013 and since then the Cabinet Office has been coordinating an ongoing process with the property owners to address the concerns which include both the clean-up of the property as well as a claim for financial compensation.

“While emphasis has been placed by the property owners on addressing financial compensation, the Cabinet Office has remained equally focused on addressing any potential environmental or public health concerns created by material processed on the site. To this end, the Cabinet Office has initiated and coordinated site visits and also requested follow up reports by no less than three government agencies namely the Department of Environmental Health (“DEH”), the Water Authority (“WAC”) and the Department of Environment (“DoE”) as these are the primary agencies within government that deal with the removal and analysis of the waste material as well as environmental concerns.

“The Cabinet Office has ensured that Mr. Powell and his family have at all times had full access to the agencies involved and demonstrated full transparency by sharing all reports and results of all tests that have been conducted.

“In order to bring this matter to a conclusion, the agencies involved have been preparing an action plan to clean up and mitigate the site. This includes conducting ongoing scientific analysis of the soil and coordinating logistics for the removal of the waste material without causing contamination of the surrounding property and water. The agencies involved have now provided their reports and drafted a combined work plan which was shared with the Powell family on 11th March 2015. This addresses the final cleanup of any remaining debris which Mr. Powell wishes to dispose of, as well as steps to mitigate any environmental concerns. The Powell family were invited to review and comment on the draft work plan and agree a date with the Cabinet Office to meet with the other agencies to discuss any outstanding concerns and to come to agreement on the final work plan.

“In response to a follow-up query by the Cabinet Office, the Powell family indicated on 31st March 2015 that they will provide a response to the draft work plan by 10th April 2015. In the meantime, the Cabinet Office has issued instructions to the agencies involved that no actions are to take place without the written consent of the property owners. Once the family has indicated satisfaction with the work plan then the DEH and WAC will progress and execute accordingly.”

However, there is no mention of the amount of monetary compensation and I am not surprised Mr. Powell is bitter and cautious. He believes, as I do, that the action being taken now, that should have been executed years ago, is only because the Powell family has gone public with it. The sentence “While emphasis has been placed by the property owners on addressing financial compensation, the Cabinet Office has remained equally focused on addressing any potential environmental or public health concerns created by material processed on the site” is certainly going to make him cautious!

The family is now taking legal advice and like most things with governments they seem incapable of making a decision without going to various committees, departments, advisers, etc. Even with all that ten years is incredible.

Now the cost to the general public when final settlement is reached is going to be thousands of dollars more than if it had been executed a long time ago.

Three administrations = three times the cost to us.

Incredible. Incredible. Incredible.