Dart dump contract on shaky ground

(CNS): The remediation of the George Town landfill is scheduled to begin next week, which may still happen if the massive fire at the dump that started this weekend is brought under control, according to the premier. This is the first phase of the total project, which includes a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant, that was awarded to a Dart-led consortium over two years ago. However, as Alden McLaughlin explained at a press briefing at the dump on Monday, the negotiations over the details of the contract, which apparently are taking place after it was signed, had stalled so they decided to break the project down into parts.

So far, only the first phase, the remediation, has been agreed.

Explaining why the process is taking so long, McLaughlin said it was “a very complex project and a very very expensive exercise”. A major part of it was designing the request for proposals, which was highly technical and required much overseas expertise, then the development of the RFP, and then the contract.

However, the premier admitted that while Dart had won the contract to do the whole project, they have been struggling to get agreement on all of its elements. “But we’re getting nothing done in the meantime so we broke it down into parts.”

He stressed that the contract and negotiations were complex and included the waste-to-energy facility, “and how they get compensated for that”. There are also aspects of the project that require an environmental impact study that they have to go through, McLaughlin said.

He said that because they had not worked out details for the next stages, they had “treated this as an early works element, separate and distinct from the rest of the contract”.

The remediation phase “is a much simpler exercise and we managed to get agreement on it”, he said. So while they are “still hammering out the final terms of the remaining aspects of the contract”, they are proceeding with the part that has been agreed, which is expected to take six months.

When asked about the possibility that no agreement will be reached with Dart over the next stages, McLaughlin admitted, “There is always a possibility of failure.” But, he said, if they abandoned the current contract, “we’d have to go back to a whole new RFP, a whole new bidding and procurement process”.

However, he said, that would be “someone else’s responsibility”, a reference to the fact that he cannot, under the Constitution, be premier for a third consecutive term.

Beginning the process over would make it much longer, he said, noting that it had taken seven years to get to this point. “And this is not the first time this has been attempted, because this is a multi-multi-million dollar undertaking. And it’s not just the capital cost of doing it, it’s the cost of operation over time. So we’ve got to have a sustainable agreement that doesn’t break government but which makes the investor feel satisfied that they are getting some returns on their money.”

He added, “Hence the long and difficult discussions over quite how the waste management is constructed because that’s where the real money is.”

However, the premier declined to reveal what the main sticking point is in the negotiations. “That would be most unhelpful,” he said.

Government’s ultimate goal is “to get a permanent fix, at least for next 25 to 30 years, for Cayman’s solid waste issues”, the premier said.

He explained that the remediation of the landfill would involve a significant amount of cover, starting with large rocks over the mound, “followed by other aggregate, compaction and then eventually the planting of vegetation, and the insertion of pipes to allow the methane gas to be pulled off”. 

He said that ultimately this is part of the broader WTE solution. The goal “is the complete abandonment of landfilling as we know it. The vast majority of waste will be burnt through the waste to energy plant and essentially only the residue will wind up in a much smaller much different kind of landfill because that is essentially ashes.”

He cautioned, “Before we get to a complete solution, if there is ever such a thing, we are still talking about three or four years.” But the immediate and long standing concern of landfill catching fire “should be resolved in six to eight months”.

See more of Premier Alden McLaughlin at the press brief below:

---