Fire crews dispatched as dump burns

(CNS): Firefighters were back at the dump Sunday afternoon to tackle yet another blaze at the George Town landfill site. Staff at the main fire station confirmed that several crews had been dispatched to tackle the blaze but they were unable to reveal any details about the fire or exactly where it was, as the firefighters had not had a chance to report back. This is the first blaze at the notorious Mount Trashmore this year and comes after government has invested in new equipment to better manage the site.

Premier Alden McLaughlin took over the Department of Environmental Health in the wake of the ‘Ozziegate’ scandal. In a ministerial re-shuffle following the embarrassing attack by Osbourne Bodden on the chief officer in the ministry, instead of removing his Cabinet colleague, McLaughlin added health and environmental health to his own portfolio and handed community affairs to Bodden.

As a result, the premier is now overseeing the slow progress towards a new national waste management strategy and what is expected to eventually be a public private partnership to remediate the aging landfill and introduce recycling and reuse.

In the meantime, as the ministry works towards a strategy, the premier has said that investment in new equipment, in particular a $450,000 excavator, would help mitigate the fires that plagued the dump last year. The machinery arrived in January and officials have claimed that this equipment and better management systems should help to reduce the number and severity of the fires.

Check back to CNS later for more details on the current blaze.