The Princes Street dump continues to pose serious difficulties for persons living in its vicinity and the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) and the Guyana Citizens’ Initiative (GCI) yesterday said that the situation has the makings of a major public health catastrophe.
Municipality workers trying to douse the flames with a single pump and hose at the Mandela landfill yesterday. (Jules Gibson photo)
In a joint press release issued yesterday the organisations said that they carried out “independent investigations” and have come to the conclusion that something needs to be done immediately to bring the site under control.
Stabroek News has reported in recent weeks on the ongoing problems at Mandela landfill.
When contacted yesterday on the issue Local Govern-ment Minister Kellawan Lall said that the only solution to this problem is relocating to another site. He noted that his ministry in collaboration with other stakeholders is trying to “expedite” the establishment of a new landfill site with a loan which was garnered from the Inter-American Develop-ment Bank (IDB).
He said that a US$18M loan was contracted and a project coordinating committee headed by local government has been established. The actual implementation of the project on the East Bank is left to be done.
Lall said that he could not put a definite time limit on when the project is expected to be finished but hopes that a new site could be opened next year. The new dump site is supposed to be located at Haag Bosch, aback of Eccles.
The smoke from the landfill shrouding commuters
Meanwhile the joint release said that the agencies are calling for a “two-tier” response from relevant authorities; medical intervention on an appropriate scale and the commissioning of a disaster response team comprising solid waste, environment and health experts, to generate a solution before the problem engulfs a larger area.
Minister Lall said that as it relates to short-term relief, which includes medical help for the people affected by the smoke from the dump, he would have to be in discussion with the City Hall committee which is responsible for such things in order to determine what can be done.
The joint release made reference to Mayor Hamilton Green’s comments when he stated that the city has no financial or technical resources to address the issue of the dump. The release said further that by asking that residents take their medical complaints to the Orange Walk clinic or the Lodge clinic is an indication that there will be no
medical response to this disaster.
The release expounded on the outrages faced by residents in Princes Street and other areas in the dump’s vicinity; adding that residents have attempted to make contact with several organisations including the Ministry of Health, Environmental Protection Agency and the City Council but have been met with little success.
Part of the Mandela landfill ablaze yesterday
It said that none of the authorities seems to want to accept responsibility for the dump and keep referring residents to one another. According to the GHRA and GCI release residents say that getting help from the Guyana Fire Service is also proving to be difficult as the first set of firemen who ventured into the dump to put out fires had to battle long illnesses and other officers now refuse to enter the dump site.
Stabroek News paid another visit to the dump yesterday afternoon and the thick smoke emanating created the illusion of a fog, especially in the north east area.
“Fed up”
Residents told this newspaper that they are “fed up” with the issue. “We complaints falling on deaf ears,” one resident said.
Stabroek News had reported in recent weeks on the fires and resulting smoke at the dump at the time residents had complained bitterly of the thick smoke they have to inhale on an almost daily basis. They had said that all sorts of things-including human remains and asbestos- were being dumped and burned for their inhalation.
Green had said in an invited comment that discontinuation of dumping garbage there is not likely to happen within the next two years. He said too that the constant fires and subsequent thick smoke is a result of constant combustion that occurs some 20-30 feet below. He reiterated that there is no technology on the local shores to effectively deal with this type of thing.
The mayor had said also that asbestos is indeed being disposed of at the dump but in a “separate cell.” And because of the asbestos, municipality workers had shown a reluctance to work at the dump resulting in the ‘smoking’ getting out of hand. However yesterday there were a few municipality workers trying in vain to control the situation with a pump and hose.
One of the workers told Stabroek News that they are expecting an excavator to “turn up” the refuse and then spray water. The same thing was being done several weeks ago when Stabroek News had visited.
Actual bursts of flames were also evident in a couple of areas yesterday afternoon.
Further Lall said yesterday that Local Government is in dialogue with NDCs to find sites to relocate other landfills since it is becoming “an increasing challenge” to deal with the additional loads of garbage being put out by households recently.
2001
In December 2001, Stabroek News had done a feature on the threat posed by the Mandela landfill and the stalled project between Guyana and the IDB for a new site. There were fears even then that there could be calamitous explosions from methane gas.
Mayor Green had been quoted then as saying that the situation was “distressing and unacceptable”.
He had stated then that he had written to the President airing concerns over the waste situation and the delayed project “to get the thing moving.”
This is disgraceful and should have been addressed long ago.We now have the health of an ethnically populated area at risk, with no clear solution in sight.
Do we understand what the latent effects of our future generation will be?
The magnitude of this disaster should warrant the attention not only of the opposition and interest groups, but external agencies like the UN, PAHO,WHO etc.
The location of this dump site in the initial design should have take into account that there are major population centres in close proximity.Maybe the only factor taken into account was the transportant cost.Waste management is much more complex and scientific than the city planners makes it out to be.There are many proven models out there which the city can adopt.
We need effective zoning laws which will create buffer zones between the population centres and the various types of development.
This was a health timebomb waiting to explode from day one. I can’t understand how a dump site can be place smack dead in the middle of a highly polulated area. Well the fact is, it is in the middle of the living and the dead. Maybe those in authority are trying to expand the cemetery by slowly killing the thousands who happen to live around this health desaster. The whole area is shrouded in this thick, putrid clould of smoke for days on. This is our Chenobyl looming ominiously over the heads of thousands.
I have a suggestion, there is this low plot of land in Bel Air Park, that quickly floods when it rains, that can be the next site when all the people around the present site are all dead.
What are these people thinking? They should know that methane gas would be building up and that pipes would have to be placed into the dump to vent the gas.. Wake up government and city council.
If you remember, the first site at the back of Eccles was scuttled because the people in the new housing site, Eccles Gardens, did not want scavengers and other undesirables to be passing through their environment to go down to the back lands where the landfill site was located, far away from the community. they argued at the consultations about health hazard and loss of property value. Health hazard was out of the question it was more about their property value and we know that a number of PPP top people live there. Another reason was that the government did not want to transfer the land into the name of the M&CC.
They moved to Haag Bosch and as far as I am aware, it is the government’s steadfast refusal to allow the land to be vested to the M&CC which ahd been holding up the project.
This of course while the people at Lodge suffer from the worse public health hazard in the middle of the capital. Compare this to none issues raised by bthose in Eccles Gardens which got decisive action.
Did the IDB give the government the funds to clean up and rectify the mandela landfill? This was part of the package….the new landfill at haag bosch and the cleaning up and rectification of the Mandel site.
Once again we see the obvious contempt with which the administration treats it’s citizens, especially those “blocks” which traditionally do not offer them electoral advantages.
It is so shameful and disgraceful that in a country of 83,000 square miles, this horrific situation was allowed to continue for so long, in the capital city of all places.
If the Government (and city council by extension) are incapable of handling the disposal of garbage, then how will they ever be able to lead Guyana into the 21st century?
I’m in sympathy with the residents affected by this smoke,especially those who are asthmatic . Hope something sensible will be done and relief will be sooner than later.
Had the Mayor been living on the Leeward side of the dump, a solution wound have been put in place already. I drove thro’ cemetery road and I cannot understand how the ministry of Health has not yet issued an alert to evacuate the area of all humans. The aging Human Rights Association is the only crutch for the suffering citizens in the affected area to lean on now. All the political bickering and empty comments /statements made by the irresponsible politicians as though it is significant or helpful to the injuries they are subjecting the citizens to, it’s time to say “Enough”
for years this noncence was going on particularly in that section of the city, which i believe will have serious health complications for residents who reside there, only in guyana this type of crap can happen.
What I am about to advocate might be seen as radical and SN might even axe it, well, I did try!!
Ever heard about civil disobedience? This is what the affected citizens need to embark on. It has happened in other societies and they got RESULTS!!!
How it can be done and be effective?
1. Form yourselves into a Concerned Citizens Association – For heaven’s sake DON”T align yourselves to any of the Opposition parties – if they were so concerned they would have bring the matter to the fore, earlier.
2. Create a human chain so that the dump trucks cannot get into the site
3. Block the entrance with any and everything you can get, old drums, derelict cars whatever
4. If and when the security forces come, don’t fight them! Just chain yourselves to each other and prostrate yourselves.
5. Be careful of folks who might infiltrate your ranks and who could easily turn this into an unnecessary fiasco.
6. Then, PICKET, PICKET, PICKET, PICKET
This is beyond politics now. It’s a matter of survival for ALL concerned
Well said, “BUT” in other parts of the world you will see
that but not in Guyana Malaka06.
Once Again it’s quite amazing. A DUMP in the middle of the city, I guess we have the award winning advisers to the City Council and the Government.
We also have a JAIL in the middle of the city Gyro.