Dart consortium finally wins dump deal
George Town landfill
(CNS): Almost seven years after the Dart Group began talking to the former United Democratic Party government about taking on the remediation of the George Town landfill, its general contracting firm, DECCO, in a consortium of local and international companies, has been selected as the preferred bidder by the current administration to enter into a public-private partnership (PPP) and implement the proposed Integrated Solid Waste Management System (ISWMS). Government officials who announced the decision Wednesday stated that the deal does not involve any relocation of the dump to Bodden Town.
Jennifer Ahearn, the chief officer in the health ministry, told CNS that the process is not yet complete, and over the next three to six months the parties will negotiate the shape of the contract before a deal is signed with the Dart company. She said that DECCO and its partners were selected over three other bidders who entered into the competitive process, but because the process is still only part the way through, she refused to identify the other bidders or detail the value of the contract.
She denied that, with the selection of a DART company, the situation had come full circle, as she said the contract and process was very different this time from the past tender.
In late 2010 the UDP began talking to Dart about the possibility of the islands’ largest investor remediating the dump and moving the landfill to Bodden Town.
Although US waste experts Wheelabrator won a competitive tender in December 2010, then premier McKeeva Bush overturned that Central Tenders Committee decision a few weeks later and announced at a CBO Conference in January 2011 that Dart would take on the dump challenge.
However, significant opposition and other political issues converged to prevent that from happening during that administration.
When the PPM took office in 2013, the government began a review and embarked upon a long process under the new tighter financial rules of the Public Management and Finance Law. Starting with the creation of a strategic case and then a business plan, public consultations and input from a wide range of technical experts, the PPM government aimed to plan and justify the project before it began a tendering process managed entirely by technocrats and independent advisers.
Ahearn explained that this bid followed a very different process from the first one and followed the rules set out by the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, which requires the elimination of politicians from the selection decisions. She said that unlike past tenders, a sub-committee of the technical ministerial steering committee was established to examine the bids, which was chaired by the government’s project manager on the ISWMS, Jim Schubert.
Speaking to CNS at an informal briefing at the Government Administration Building Wednesday, he said that all of the components of the new ISWMS would be located in George Town on or near the current landfill site. The DECCO consortium will be responsible for creating the composting element of the project, a new recycling and recovery sorting centre, as well as the waste to energy component.
It will also remediate the existing landfills, capture the landfill gases and create a new smaller, engineered, lined landfill on the existing site to deal with the ash and the waste that cannot be recycled, reused or burned for energy. DECCO will not be mining the dump, which is located very close to Dart-owned Camana Bay and much of the land owned by the Dart group of companies.
Despite the government’s goal to promote the reuse, recovery and recycling of waste, the new PPP will see the Department of Environmental Health retain the garbage collection element and there will be no curbside recycling collection.
Schubert said that the public will still be required to recycle through the recycling points at local supermarkets. Although DECCO will be sorting and recovering metals and other specific recyclables from the collected rubbish and focusing heavily on the composting component, the rest of the garbage collected will be incinerated in the waste-to-energy process, including may potentially recyclable materials.
Check back to CNS later for more on this story.
Category: Local News
Speak good and only good will come from it. Let be more hopeful Cayman Islands. I hope that this Project improves our way of Living.
What if he decides to use the dump as leaverage to aquire more from the government.The more you kick the garbage down the road the stinker it gets.
Meanwhile, the existing dump will continue to ooze into the North Sound until the end of time. That seepage is what will destroy our golden egg. Soon come.
PS. I too hope you all choke on Dart’s money and ‘generosity’.
Why are you such a hater it sounds to me that you really hate this man Dart. I dont understand why you Caymanians want to continue to live in the stone age you dont have to sell him your land. I dont think that Dart is going out to people homes and holding a gun to their heads and demanding them to sell their land. Caymanians are the most grudeful and hateful people that I have ever known. By the way I am born Caymanian my mother Caymanian, my father Caymanian 2 Grand Mothers Caymanian 2 Grand Fathers Caymanian my sisters and brothers aunts and uncles cousins nieces and nephews are all Caymanians so I know what I am talking about. You need to get a life and stop worrying about Dart this and Dart that and you cant sleep or eat for of Dart and getting a nervous break down over this man name Mr, Dart.
Have a great weekend Caymanians!! my fellow Young Caymanians!!
Maybe the rent will go up by Lakeside Villas
Only if Dart buys it.
These comments are pathetic. Please people find us one Dart project that isn’t first class, done on time, on budget and adds greatly to Caymans economy. Didn’t find one did you. Thought so.
i agree with you…but he is way delayed on highway expansion…..
Only because the gov kept moving the goalposts
The government that is invited and involved in the process after the fact?
Camana Bay – I work there and many things are falling apart in my building. Just because it’s pretty and expensive don’t mean it works or is valuable.
Also don’t know that we needed the cluster muck of a 3 lane roundabout. OR Can we talk about the business that are enticed to open in Camana Bay, then eventually can’t make the rent so are eventually taken over by Dart or shut down? Can we talk about how monopolies are not actually a good thing, bad enough we have CUC, but let’s give Dart the monopoly of all things CAYMAN. Then when this one person/company owns and controls everything and sets the prices so the average man can’t afford to live here, let’s talk about how good this Vulture Capitalist is “good for Cayman.’ But hey I like to look at things through rose colored glasses at times too.
But I will still agree his projects are better than most – just because they are better than some others, does not make them the best.
My dear, don’t be discouraged by the lack of support for your excellent comments on this phenomena called “Dart”. Caymanians are yet to face up to the threat this entity is posing to their country, its people and culture, and there is an army of supporters – some Caymanians, others foreign residents – who for their own personal interests and greed are fully supportive of this capitalist behemoth. But there will be a day of reckoning, history has proven. Have no doubt. It’s coming.
By the comment you made 12 OCTOBER It sounds like you don’t have any class at all, Cayman need to have first class places so that our youths when they travel the world will not feel like they where living in a stone age country or under a rock and they will be able to compete with anyone in any country they travel to…. stop being small minded just because you live in a small country. its very obvious that you are not well travelled……..
You mean rich (paper) caymanians??? And their kids??
Can you get the coolaid in different flavours?
Hopefully whichever company Dart is partnering with for the waste to energy side of the deal will change course and mine the dump for fuel for its incinerator so that in 10 or 15 years the dump will be gone completely. It makes a lot more sense to do that to produce electricity than to burn diesel in the generators at CUC.
Costs more energy to mine and try burn wet, partially decomposed and completely unseparated rubbish than you can generate. So no. They are not going to mine it, and even burning the new waste is going to be heavily dependent on us changing our habits and having separate bins for compostable waste, recyclables etc. If you look at the figures quoted you can see the system is going to cost us over a $100 million to operate over the next 25 years AFTER selling electricity from the plant.
Sounds like another “Return the Goldfield to Cayman” boondogle.
thank you mac……not a fan of his all the time but if he wasn’t part of government now this probably would not have happened…
If Mac hadn’t screwed around with the tendering process this would have been fixed by now.
If Dart hadn’t tried to be cute with the Bodden Town holes in the ground horseshit then this would have been fixed by now.
Blame both Dart & Mac.
Dart can now fix it, but note that the deal is not signed – Dart will no doubt want its pound of flesh somehow.
Who
Wrong again.
???… the original deal was still the best option…..landfills should not be in the heart of the islands capital!
ppm turned down the original option for the sake of a few votes from the ‘bright folks’ of bodden town
Really GT might be the capital but the majority of the urban expansion on these islands in the next 10-15 years is going to be in BT. Do you ever think ahead, the problem is located in one area and instead of handling it where it is you think moving it to another place is a good idea, “out of sight, out of mind” is clearly your philosophy.
If the government had moved the dump to BT that would have been the end of it, the people of GT and WB who have the majority of the seats in the LA (11/19 seats) could completely disregard the will of the rest of the islands electoral districts and voting population.
“The bright folks” as you put it, of BT are doing exactly what they should be doing ensuring that BT isn’t put into the mess that GT is in now, because if they move the Dump to BT we would be powerless to do anything about it.
There are only two real reasons anything is getting done, after 7 years:
1. Dart wants to remove or hide the dump from his little development project so that the land he already owns will increase in value and not be next to an ever-growing dump
2. The Government wants to make sure that the tourists coming here don’t see our “dirty laundry (or in this case dirty pile of trash) prominently displayed to them from their ships or the view out of a airplane window
The funny thing is you aren’t even smart enough to realize if they had gone with the original plan it isn’t like they were going to move Mt Trashmore, how exactly do you think that would have gone? A project of that size is not only impractical and improbable but extremely inefficient and unnecessarily complicated. This Island is looking into changing development plans on construction on a school almost 10 years in. Do you really think they are competent enough to deal with this problem? They would have done the exact same thing that they plan to do now, capped off the dump and left it there in the “heart of GT”. If you think they had or have any other choice you are just lying to yourself.
Some people from GT and WB don’t care that the dump is a huge environmental problem and risk for the ALL of the islands, whether it the fires, and noxious gas pockets or potential drainage into the water around the islands, all they care about is where it is, the LOCATION is the reason why this is a big issue for them. They don’t care about creating a sustainable program for the future of the islands so this can be avoided, they care about their view and their property values.
Avoid this kind of mindless talk, these islands aren’t big enough to push the undesirable and ugly bits to one side, handle to problem WHERE IT IS ,and set a system up to prevent it from happening again, just thank whatever gods you believe in that the CIG had the sense to hand this over to someone who has a vested interest in getting it done professionally and efficiently.
Diogenes,
While you make some excellent points, your description of Dart’s “little” project reveals your prejudice and therefore discredits much of you post.
Referring to Camana Bay as Dart’s “little development project” means that I am prejudiced and discredits the legitimacy of the rest of my post, how exactly?
He is Caymanian, so stick up for your brother, and give the stick to the brits like you always do. They must be to blame somewhere. Or the WP holders.
True, a facility should have been opened in Bodden Town about three years ago. Not Mac’s fault this time however.
Finally! Hallelujah!
Why did Mac unilaterally cancel the Wheelabrator contract in breach of the procurement laws and how much did it cost the country to settle the ensuing court case? Mysteries that will never be properly explained or investigated….it must be fun and lucrative to be a politician in Cayman and just do whatever you want.
Cease with your bureaucratic harrassment. These laws got in the way of things being done.
How and why can you really be upset about someone finally doing something about the dump? Literal trash. The same dump that has been an eyesore for years, the same dump people moaned no one was doing anything about…. the same one that we inhale, same one leaking into our water… this list could for on for ages.
You are scared of change and progression.. you must be if you are moaning about a DUMP.
It makes me sick to see the “is Cayman going to change it’s name to dart islands now?” You are ignorant and stuck in old, hard headed ways. Please retire this dumb comment/question. You are a joker if you think dart hasn’t done anything to help the islands. Imagine Cayman without dart… Imagine the entire island resembling the vacant, ghost town, eyesore town is. Honestly take the time to think about it, to compare and analyze because it’s clear some are blinded by narrow mindedness and backward thinking.
People are so ungrateful, petty and you all really look for every reason to hate dart lol bye. Do better please, you’re embarassing. You would rather hate on something because it’s changing things rather than try to understand, or help the move forward.
It’s 2017, the world is and has been moving forward and for some reason Cayman as been left behind. As a young, born and raised, Caymanian, who left island to further my education and then came back in attempted and with hope to help better my country in any way… I’m left disappointed in some of our people.
I think you are thanking the current Government?
Clearly they are just expressing their frustrations with the unnecessary and thoughtless negative comments of some, as well as showing their support of dart winning this dump deal..
No, the previous one where the process got going in a proper fashion.
No. The previous one where a proper process got started and has led to a promising outcome.
I am disappointed with some of our people, too…. the ones that think Dart is our savior. Dart is for Dart! He is not interested in anything other than adding to his wealth and power. He has enough money to buy most anything he wants, including politicians. The time is coming when Dart will own the Cayman Islands.
i HAVE SEEN NOTHING CHANGE.. I hear,I hope but until I stop smelling the dump I with hod applause.
Dart gets it done and gets it done good. Plenty Islands out there in total devastation ready to open their doors to Dart. Be thankful he chose cayman
Not so sure Mr. Wilson.
So the Cayman Islands was in “total devastation” before Mr.Dart arrived? What the heck are you smoking, dude?
The pride of the politicians was overcome by the reality that the dump job was too big for the government to handle. It only took about 5 years to come to this conclusion. Now overcome the Boddentown dump boycott.
Lol, the same Ms. Ahearn at the helm of CarePay/Canover Watson fiasco? Now brokering a deal with Dart who has millions of dollars vested in properties sorrounding the existing Dump? Bodden Towners there will be a dump coming near you, stay tuned.
If you think Ms. Ahearn was the problem with CarePay…
… you must be smoking something.
When you do not read the important documents like a multimillion dollar or demand full details and get legal advice before you sign off on paying out millions in public funds ultimately the buck stops with you.
Therefore it is fair to conclude that Ahearn was a huge part of the problem and was negligent in carrying out her duties or simply incompetent who should be fired.
I am hoping the future plans will incorporate a (as at present) public (free) drop off facility?
While I’m excited it will finally be taken care of, I’m disappointed to know that there will not be any curbside recycling services offered!! This would have such a positive impact on this island- making it convenient to recycle, more people will be willing to do it!!!
At the very least, they should have curbside recycling for bars, restaurants and hotels!!
Dart digs his claws in even deeper. What aspect of control will he take over next???
hopefully cig……
If only everything the Civil Service does could be contracted out so that performannce matters and accountability is paramount.
Veritas…interesting but stupid comment. Exactly what services can the private sector do better?
You mean the rip off services the banks provide by charging us to deposit money. Have you tried calling any bank and speaking to a real person.
Or maybe you are talking about the rip service that FLOW CUC and Digicel are providing.
Oh maybe you are referring to the private sector lawyers who are milking our legal aid funds by having court cases adjourned for years. How disgusting.
Or I bet you are referring to the private sector sick note doctors who offer sick notes like they are lottery tickets.
Who exactly in the private sector should we ask to perform the complicated work the civil service performs? Most of which is far out of scope for the private sector to comprehend. Who is fighting the EU on beneficial ownership? Do you even know what that is?
Can you really believe that the private sector could achieve what Ms Ahearn just did with running a major and complicated procurement exercise. The private sector would have spent millions on consultants and employed dozens of experts. Ms Ahearn did it with a few experts and one additional staff member.
Just think of what the Civil Service has achieved in the past 4 years. Dump solution, airport renovation and port renovation out to tender. Now that’s progressive and outside the ability of the private sector.
But let’s agree one thing when the private sector and the civil service work together for a common goal. Great things happen.
You need to get off island and see how real countries operate.
SMH!
Seriously the CIG and Civil Service is a bloated employer of last resort. The inefficiencies are startling. The fact that occasionally they do something is not cause for a medal to be awarded. The idea of a PPP is decades old and successfully used the world over. What is unique to Cayman as far as I can tell is the large percentage of CIG workers doing essentially nothing and skating off their colleagues. Plus don’t get me started on the moonlighting that goes on.
What if our performance reviews were contracted out and actually meant something, what then?
“Still be required to recycle”…like that’s a situation that exists!
What a complete and total disaster. Move the dump to residential Bodden Town to a lined pit. Here’s a hint toward the future: Good luck finding a “lined pit” that doesn’t become perforated within three years. It’s really a no-brainer: Lined pits also collect water, which has great weight, which distends the 50-mil polyethelene and eventually tears it.
If you understand nothing else, understand this: This “plan” is not in any way a proper waste management program; it is a moving of a toxic landfill to a residential area, so it is not in the public/visitor eyes, and in the process increasing the value of Dart’s adjacent property severalfold. This is a complete and total disaster for the people of Grand Cayman.
SO incredibly disappointed in the CIG. Sellouts. I hope you all choke on the Dart Dollars.
…except this deal isn’t moving the dump to Bodden Town! Please read.
So you didn’t bother reading the article then or what? The deal isn’t set in stone but as far as the public is aware the deal does not include relocating the dump ( as multiple articles clearly state) . I suggest you ask CNS to take down your comment, your ignorance is on display.
Diogenes
thank you again, ken.
i shudder to think where cayman would be without dart right now!
True words
When is the island going to change its name formally to Dart islands?
Cayman is surviving because of Dart, if you took them out of the equation we really would be the island that time forgot
Heard it a million times. “Dart Island” Hateful Caymanians you don’t have much of a choice but getting over it. Dart isn’t going anywhere. Unless you actually take your anger and do something pro active with it, as opposed to complaining on Facebook all day long.
7:03, I know you are lying when you say you’ve heard it a million times, but thanks for mentioning Facebook. I can let folks know what a cancer Dart is to the Cayman Islands.
Thats not true. Dart hasnt even supplied one job in any tourism spots. Not one job to any of the high school graduates from local or home schooled classes of any graduating years.
Disgusting ….. completely messed up and the locals will pay dearly for years
Like a watching a bloody tennis match, back and forth, back and forth. Let’s get it done already!
Balls.
Go Dart!!
(we like you this week, but reserve the right to hate you next week)
Depends which way it figures its most advantageous path is. That’s the nature of pure capitalism, sportsfan. Follow the money.
Hallelujah, praise be to the garbage gods! I’m sure Dart will do a stellar job and we’ll see just a whiff of clean steam from the stack in this new piece of badly needed infrastructure. Next please enter into another PPP, reduce the Water Authority to a solely regulatory body and clean up the decrepit wastewater treatment plant next door. I’m hoping and betting this will happen in another imminent press release.
Call me a cynic, but my money’s on you’re a cheerleader on some kinda “Dart Sportsfan” team? I’m encouraged. Where can I sign on and get my blood type tattoo?
Criticize the UDP about working with DART, then delay the project a few years put a red sheet on it and then come back and give the project to DART. I bet you will soon see that DART is going to build the cruise ship port as well. Same thing criticize UDP for working with DART, wait a few years (spend a lot of money on consultants to decide), throw a red sheet on it and do the same thing that they criticized the UDP for doing. The more things change the more they remain the same.
Yep the only difference between the PPM and the UDP is that the PPM is packaged more intelligently. Mac got the faster and dirtier but at least you know what you were getting. NOW that the proof is in the pudding, I hope all eyes are open now to the PPMs “glory.” It took me a while thankfully I’m not a card holding member of any party.
Criticism of UDP was due to suspected creative accounting reasons .
The ppm are delusional and a political contradiction of values eventually accepting every idea or plan organized by the udp then eventually joining forces with them in 2017. Alden needs McKeeva in this pantomime called cayman politics.
The Dart deal on the table years ago was for a lined cell to hold more garbage – completely different to what the integrated approach is now.
Completely different indeed – last deal was free, according to the Compass this one is going to cost $106 million upfront and net operating costs of $157 million over the next 25 years.
We will be fortunate if it only costs $100 million per year.
Money talk$…… BS walk$! Thi$ will co$t MANY million$ of dollar$.
And more trade off that are unseen at the moment but continues to sell our heritage and the future of our children right down the drain.
Darty Does the Dump! Or Dart Trumps Dump? On second thoughts lets keep Trump out of it.
Good news…now can we get the trash collectors to stop blocking the recycling bins in our complex with the main trash container? Can never get near them…its pathetic how they don’t think things through..making more work for themselves, or perhaps that is their aim?
“This will create more jobs”
But no Caymanians will take those jobs…its beneath some of their grade 6 educations
Whose gonna pick up your trash? Not me
The outcomes of these government bids are predetermined before the RFP or Expression of Interests are written. It is all smoke and mirrors.
Thank You PPM..finally we have some movement
PPM blocked the same plans in 2011 because they were not in power and obstructionist. Wasted years because of egos. Thanks PPM
Different plan, different deal. Try reading.
good ole dart ….
Best News in the past 5 years
God is good.
All the time!
Best news all week. At least it will be done properly.