Fire service to help DEH improve dump
(CNS): Following one of the worst ever fires at the George Town landfill last month, which the minister with responsibility has still not commented on, the Department of Environmental Health (DEH) will now be assisted by the Cayman Islands Fire Service to improve daily operations at the site and cut the risk of fire, officials said in a press release. Both agencies took part in four days of training, beginning Tuesday, 28 January, on the strategic management of the rubbish and enhancing fire fighting tactics.
Landfill fire expert Dr Tony Sperling led the training, drawing on his experience upgrading the Nassau Landfill site in the Bahamas, which, not unlike the George Town dump, frequently caught fire. However, Sperling transformed the management and overall safety.
“The inherent characteristics of any landfill site make them susceptible to igniting and challenging to extinguish,” said CIFS Deputy Chief Fire Officer Roy Charlton. “Fires can often be deep seated and protracted incidents, as we saw during January’s fire adjacent to the landfill.”
That fire was unusual, however, as it started at the scrap metal yard area, where derelict cars are compacted and prepped for shipping overseas.
Fires at the dump are not unusual. As well as the garbage mound known as Mount Trashmore frequently combusting, tyres that were stored at the landfill before an industrial size shredder was installed also used to cause noxious fires.
Officials said that fire prevention was, therefore, at the centre of the four-day workshop, which included both risk specific theory and practical training.
During the four-day training, which had been scheduled prior to the most recent and serious fire, Dr Sperling also shared his expertise with Island Recycling, which is understood to be managing the scrap metal area.
“CIFS and DEH have a long established close working relationship,” said DEH Director Richard Simms, who has been overseeing the dump for some nine months. He inherited a department fraught with problems after its previous director was on some form of official leave for over eight months and staff morale was very low.
Simms said he was keen to share expertise and have a coordinated approach to tackling the challenges. “Over the next three years, our aim is to enhance our current safety and fire control operations while we restore the landfill and continue to move to a waste to energy solution,” he said.
However, he gave no indication about when the proposed new waste management project, to be delivered by DECCO, Dart’s general contractor, would get underway.
After more than two years and several months of talks between government and DECCO, no contract has been revealed. Although the government has suggested that work on remediating the landfill was due to start early this year, there has been no announcement about when that will be.
In the meantime, with an ever-growing population, increasing tourism and still no campaigns to encourage waste reduction or reuse and very little success in increasing recycling, Cayman’s rubbish problem increases every day.
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Category: Environmental Health, Health
We need the dump. If we have tsunami, it will be the highest point in the island and may save those who can get to the top. LOL
Should’ve just let the thing burn, maybe we’d get another year space.
Only you won’t see it, being dead already.
Blind leading the blind and the overlords don’t want to know. The place is a ticking time bomb and our MLAs want to increase our population and build a mini metropolis? Implementing a final solution for our solid waste needs to be priority number one! The world must see how irresponsible & greedy our leaders are for fostering exponential population growth while failing to deal with it’s end product. Don’t our honourable idiots see this problem has been festering for over 30 years now? Maybe we need to construct a new LA building overlooking the stinking pile?
Sorry to tell you this 11:16 but the world does not give a damn about these dinky islands. Caymanians are delusional about their self importance.
Something for the 21 new recruits to do then…why the heck have we taken on so many at once?
None of them will live long fighting the Dump fires. I hope life insurance and free life time healthcare are in their employment benefits.
Need to create jobs for Caymanians.
They are not really helping to improve the dump.
About time the CIG brought in someone who possibly give us some real helpful advice.
Ok DR.Landfill fire expert please tell the entire community how toxic the fires actually are. Show us the scientific tests that other countries do that prove the safety and regulations to the community.
CIG
First it’s a hazard zone the word dump we need to change, call it a land fill atleast.
So we hire 30 young kids so they can tackle the numerous fires at the land fill this year.
Even if you move the dump doesn’t mean the solution is solved.
You can’t fix toxic waste some half lifes of chemicals are hundreds of years in the environment.
It’s 2020, 100 years later and we can launder billions of dollars every day to companies but no one can get them to fix OUR dump for pennies.
Jeez
Dr. Sperling, P.Eng., Ph.D., is a landfill design specialist with a Doctorate in Geotechnical Engineering. Dr. Sperling brings over eighteen years of engineering experience to DroneX, having led hundreds of landfill engineering design, development and closure projects, as well as hydrogeotechnical investigations, environmental monitoring studies and other solid waste related projects for municipal and private sector clients.
Dr. Sperling has been an invited lecturer on landfill design and operation at the British Columbia Institute of Technology and an author of more than 20 technical papers on landfill design and fire control. Dr. Sperling has been appointed Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at UBC.
Dr. Sperling is brilliant in his field, however, if there is no political will to do anything Dr. Sperling’s words will fall on deaf ears. He certainly has the answers but no one in authority is really listening.
Move the dump
What qualifies Richard Simms to be DEH director?
And Sister Islands training? (Thanks for doing it when you do do it.)
2.12pm It is Cayman is. Fire Service and represents all three islands. No need for different training for Sister Islands staff.
Not different, but they all need similar training (and protocols) was (and is) the point. So it seems we’re all on the same page here. (Right DEH & CIFS?)