After the good news that shot over yesterday’s (7) Editorial comes the bad. Three masked armed men made off with a small amount of cash and stole a car  after terrorising a man and a woman in their home in Palm Dale, George Town. Stealing a car on this small island is not very bright of them but you don’t need even an average IQ to break into someone’s home with weapons and requiring three of you to do it to steal only a few dollars. The punishment for all that “work” far outweighs the “reward” from it. However I expect the money was enough to give them the “fix” they deserve. A snort or a puff and they are in paradise for a few minutes.

The ugly is the dump or the waste management operation debacle that is in no danger of abating. Further to our headline in Sat-Mon (4-6) edition of iNews Cayman “Dump May Blow” the local civil engineer, Sam Small, who signed off on the sorting and recycling structures built at the George Town landfill, when the PPM were in power, said there is sufficient room to create the envisioned modern waste management system on Mount Trashmore. He said it was better to keep the dump where it is “instead of contaminating a new site.”

“What ForCayman Alliance is offering for Bodden Town is exactly the same as we have at the GT landfill, apart from a liner under the proposed landfill,” he said.  “When the GT landfill started it was not common practice to line tip areas. However today it is best practice to do so, but this does not deal with the run off which is seen entering the North Sound.”

We have Hon. Mark Scotland who is the Environment Minister and Bodden Town MLA claiming that the proposed new waste management facility by the Dart-government ForCayman Investment Alliance “bears no resemblance whatsoever to, nor will it be operated in a similar manner as the dump” [at the current location]. The Dart government Alliance has actually said the opposite, stating publicly that the new waste management facility would provide for the same processes carried out at the current landfill site.

Am I the only person who is confused? People on the same side really should make sure they say the same thing especially holding a very hot potato like this one.

If I was a suspicious person I would be concluding there is another reason why the Dart government Alliance are so determined to relocate the dump (sorry I have to keep calling it that but ‘modern waste management system’ is such a mouthful) and it has to do with, dare I say, MONEY, or lack of same
by government.

Although the Dart government Alliance has produced three studies that concluded Mount Trashmore should be moved none actually pointed to Bodden Town. The studies were all executed before 2003. Local firm APEC Consulting Engineers actually published a study in 2008 that concluded the present site in George Town with a waste-to-energy facility could be used for the foreseeable future and with proper management the waste problem could be tackled at the present site. However, this study was commissioned by the previous PPM government at a cost of $148,000 to us, the public, and is therefore valueless or should I say a “waste”.

But it does make for very ugly thoughts, doesn’t it?

At the moment Mount Trashmore is in my backyard and I have had to live with it for 30 years. Perhaps it’s time for another study? Sam Small suggests an independent, legal, public enquiry into the problem. I think that is just a pipe dream and who is going to pay and organise it? How independent is independent?

I do have to agree with Mr. Small when he says, “The environmental issues alone, if mismanaged, could destroy Cayman’s eco system, thus affecting our health and well being, future tourism revenue plus additional government costs, as well as affecting this country’s ability to repay its national debt, thereby incurring additional liability for the UK.”