Minister Christophe Emmanuel: “Dump fires will soon be a thing of the past”

GREAT BAY – The dump on Pond Island took center stage during yesterday’s Council of Ministers press briefing. Minister Christophe Emmanuel emphasized that the dump is a priority. “We are working on it,’ he said.

At the same time, the minister said that he will not come with a comment every time the dump is on fire. “That is because next week the dump will be on fire again, and the week after as well. Right now you will see pockets of smoke on the dump. People, there is no time that the dump is not on fire,” Emmanuel said. “It is always on fire.”

How critical the situation at the dump is, appears from Emmanuel’s following statement: “At present the dump is telling the people of St. Maarten: do not dump any more garbage on me. We cannot put garbage on the dump anymore, yet we dump everything there, from car wrecks and fridges to stoves and other household appliances. We are also taking garbage from cruise ships and from the French side.”

The minister said that the country needs a different location for the dump. “Not a place where we’ll be doing the same thing,” he said. “It is time to separate the garbage, to bale, crush and mulch it.”

Emmanuel said that his ministry has identified 20,000 square meters of land on Pond Island for this purpose, currently occupied by entities that should not be there. The ministry has told Bakker Recycling for instance to move out within three months. “And they are moving out as we speak,” Emmanuel said.

The government has also designated 14,000 square meter of land for the construction of a waste-to-energy facility and another 10,000 square meter for the separate storage of cardboard, bottles and plastics.

“We are in discussion with Mendez to set up a facility that is going to bale and mulch garbage,” the minister said.

The initiative requires an investment of €250,000 in equipment fit to crush pallets, tires and concrete. “The government is committed to solving this problem,” Emmanuel continued. “But fixing it now is costing money. Are people prepared to take on an additional charge of 25 guilders on their Gebe bill for it? Or 4 to 5 cent on a liter of gasoline?”

The ministry is in discussions with a company that is prepared to remove all car wrecks from the island for free. “We also need a company to drive pipes into the landfill to release the methane gas,” Emmanuel said. “But that costs money.”

The minister said that a waste-to-energy facility is not an energy solution. “It is a solution for the garbage. By dealing with the garbage, energy will be produced. Many of the companies that have come with 100 percent financing proposals were concentrating on the energy, but I am concentrating on the garbage.”

Then, Emmanuel made a bold statement: “Dumping garbage on the landfill will soon be a thing of the past.” Later he added: “I can assure you that fires on the dump will soon be a thing of the past.”

Currently there are 20,000 pallets and 60,000 old car tires. “We are going to shred and mulch those pallets and create biodegradable material that we can spread among our mangroves. There are also companies willing to take the rubber and metal off our hands.”

Separating garbage will also be promoted shortly, the minister said. “soon you will see separate garbage bins – yellow, blue and green. That is another investment we will take on.”

Minister Emil Lee (Public Health) said that during his visit to the Cayman Islands he had also looked at the solutions that country had found for its garbage disposal. “They have experienced fires just like us, but they have brought them under control. Dump fires are now rare if not non-existent in the Cayman Islands,” the minister said.

Lee learned in the Cayman Islands that proper security around a landfill is important, as is proper coverage of garbage after it has been compacted with soil to prevent the penetration of oxygen.

Prime Minister William Marlin said that there are indications that at least one or two dump fires have been set on purpose. “Someone is going around taking credit for those firs,” he said.

The PM emphasized that the dump is a priority for the government and that the Council of Ministers will shortly tour the facility to get an impression of the magnitude of the problem.

“Marlin said that the current problems are not caused by Vromi-Minister Emmanuel. “The dump is older than the minister, but it rests on his shoulders to come up with a solution.”

The landfill on Pond Island is around 45 years old, Marlin said, adding that in 1997 the government isolated the dump from the Great Salt Pond to prevent leakage of harmful materials into the water. “The entire pond was getting polluted. There was no more fish, no vegetation but over time the fish, the mangroves and the pelicans came back.”

In 1997 the government had a plan to come up with a solution for the dump within ten years. “That would put us in 2007 and we are now in 2017 and there is still no structural solution,” Marlin observed drily.

He tempered expectations about a waste-to-energy facility: “If we signed an agreement this afternoon it would still take two to three years before it is operational. In the meantime we keep dumping every waste item we produce.”

Marlin said that he promotes the separation of garbage and that he is also doing this at home. “I am calling on people to channel their energy into taking active steps instead of criticizing,” he said.

The PM said that people would see changes in the coming months, definitely by year’s end. “You will see a turnaround of what is presently the dump,” he promised. “The challenges are many, the history is extensive and the solutions are not easy but this government is not walking away from it.”