Dump EIA will take one year to complete
(CNS): The environmental impact assessment covering the build-out of the nine elements on the current George Town landfill site that will make up the country’s future waste-management facility will take about one year to complete. According to the Terms of Reference document for the EIA, which was released on Monday, it will examine all of the components of the main waste-to-energy facility, the various recycling plants and the residual landfill. The assessment will not cover the current remediation of the existing dump, which officials from Dart have said is a separate element.
The ToRs for the proposed Integrated Solid Waste Management System (ISWMS) project, now named ReGen, outline the full details of what the EIA will cover, the main components being air and soil quality, the gasses that will be emitted, the impact on marine and terrestrial life, the effect of construction and operation of the facility on schools and homes in the vicinity, and the risk the project poses for flooding and to the groundwater quality.
While the area in and around the dump is largely man-modified, there are areas of mangroves and vegetation that will be lost that will have an impact on wildlife. Given how close the site is to the North Sound, there will be threats posed to the nearby marine habitat, which must be considered. The ToRs also include examining the impact and risks posed to the marine environment by the movement of waste from the Sister Islands and the recycling materials that will be shipped overseas.
The dump is very close to the Cayman International School and the main residential area closest to it are the dozen or so apartment blocks across the Esterley Tibbetts Highway. Students at the school and residents of Lakeside condominiums will be the most directly affected by the construction and then later by the operations.
However, given the current situation they face with the smells and fires, they may not be overly concerned about the additional disruption over the next three years if the long-term outcome proves to be, as promised, a massive improvement.
The EIA will also look at the cumulative impact of other projects in the area, which, according to the ToRS, includes Camana Bay and the cruise berthing project, even though the latter is no longer on the table. The ToRs also appear to have been completed before the second Health City hospital project, which will be located at Camana Bay, was given the green light.
The project, which is being constructed on 34 acres in and around the current dump, will be handling over 115,000 tons of solid waste every year, most of which will be burnt in an “energy recovery facility”. But it will also offer some reuse and recycling services that will remain here in Cayman, such as composting and crushed glass, while other materials like paper and scrap metal will be shipped overseas.
The ToRs were written by the environmental consultant company, Wood Environment & Infrastructure Solutions UK Ltd, which was contracted by the Cayman Islands Government to advise on the ReGen project, with input from the CIG’s project team. The draft Terms of Reference have been agreed by the project’s Environmental Assessment Board, which includes representatives from the Department of Environment, Department of Environmental Health, Department of Planning, National Roads Authority, and Water Authority Cayman.
As part of the process, public meetings will be held to allow the community to ask questions and offer input on these parameters before the EIA gets underway. The meetings begin next week, with the first one at the John Gray Memorial Hall, West Bay, on Tuesday, 8 June. The next meeting will be at the Harquail Theatre, George Town, on Wednesday, 9 June. The final meeting will bw at the Breakers Civic Centre on 10 June. All of the meetings start at 7pm.
The public can see the full ToRs in the CNS Library.
Hard copies are available throughout the 21-day consultation period at the following locations:
- Government Administration Building, 133 Elgin Avenue, George Town
- George Town Public Library, 68 Edward Street
- Teacher Redley Powery Library, 182 Reverend Blackman Rd, West Bay
- Bodden Town Library, 69 Bodden Town Road
- District Administration, Government Administration Building, Cayman Brac
- National Trust House, Little Cayman
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Environmental Health, Health
Why don’t we just throw it all in the sea like our neighbors.
Now we know why it took so long for anything positive to happen to Caymans dump.
Mr. Premier please get Wallet size Vaccine card for people that had the vaccine, so they can carry them in their wallets. We all know the Covid virus will be around for along time.
Move the dump. This micro poison crap that is going to go into the air is going to give everyone cancer. Think an incinerator burning toxic crap doesn’t produce toxic waste? Think those filters and controls will actually work or even be maintained properly?
Move the dump.
are you sure this is for Cayman as the artists rendition looks like it is a totally different island. That’s not Cayman or anything like Cayman in the picture.
JUST AN EXAMPLE. How many WTE Plant Operators Cayman can hire locally?
WTE Plant Operator I
Five Open Vacancies
Recruitment #200309-387487-001
Salary $25.42 – $36.07/hour; $4,406.13 – $6,252.13/month; $52,873.60 – $75,025.60/year
KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES
Advanced knowledge of: operation, maintenance and control of steam-generating power plants; waste to energy plant lockout/tagout procedures, safety rules and procedures, job hazard analyses, operating and maintenance instructions, and other procedure manuals.
Knowledge of: mechanical skills sufficient to perform such routine tasks as opening vessel and equipment access doors, placing and removing furnace access equipment, overhead protection and staging, operating power tools, and performing minor mechanical repairs to plant equipment or structures; basic safety practices; mathematics sufficient to complete required job functions.
Ability to: establish and maintain effective working relationships; communicate clearly and concisely; apply intermediate computer skills Microsoft Office and CMMS.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Graduation from an accredited high school or equivalent with two (2) years of solid waste combustion facility experience or related occupations such as design, start-up, or maintenance of steam turbines, boilers or related machinery which supply power or heating service to an industrial, maritime or commercial process or facility; or an equivalent combination of training and experience.
Current employees with 1 year of experience as a Utility Operator II who have completed the internal training program are encouraged to apply for consideration.
LICENSES OR CERTIFICATIONS:
Possession of valid Provisional Certification under the ASME QRO Certification for operators of Resource Recovery Facilities with the ability to obtain the certification within 6 months.
Must complete Assistant Plant Operator training within 6 months.
And your point is what? And how does the staffing of the WTE relate to the article, which is about environmental impact?
Anybody want to say a simple thank you to the Darts for at least doing something about it…
Thankk
Well, they know it’s coming so they have about 4 years to get the requisite qualifications and experience under their belt. No time like the present.
BERMUDA | Wed, June 02, 2021
Tynes Bay incinerator pollution increases
https://www.royalgazette.com/environment/news/article/20210129/tynes-bay-incinerator-pollution-increases/
Incinerator’s [Bermuda] highly toxic pollutants exceed permitted level by four times https://www.greenrock.org/news/82-bermuda/762-incinerators-highly-toxic-pollutants-exceed-permitted-level-by-four-times
yep…can getting kicked down the road again…another year closer to the next election and a new government cycle….
dart offered a free solution 10 years ago…but ppm turned it down for the sake of a few wotes in bodden town…..
welcome to wonderland.
It was Bodden toners who shortsightedly refused to have it, it’s called Democracy.
Yeah, the selfish devils didn’t want a lined open pit of garbage in their residential area. Imagine that. Their children could play in it even! Fun for the whole family!
That was Dart’s “free” solution.
1 year for the EIA assessment.1 year for the CIG to hear all the objections from various interest groups. 1 year for CIG to evaluate everything. 1 year to put out to ‘tender’ all the different parts of the project. 1 year to …. Please wake me up in a few years when or if it ever gets done.
I bet you’d be the first one to complain if any of the systems failed and people were injured.
What direction is that picture taken in?
CNS: It’s an artist’s rendition, not a photo, as the caption says.
Ok but shouldn’t it be SMB in the foreground?
That’s the future SMB…….
Report: Waste Incineration: A Dirty Secret in How States Define Renewable Energy. Burning garbage to generate power is neither clean nor renewable. Yet, aging, costly, and polluting solid waste incinerators have been bolstered by a dirty secret — 23 states legally classify incineration as “renewable” in their energy goals and commitments.
https://ilsr.org/waste-incineration-renewable-energy/
Why solid waste incineration is not the answer to your city’s waste problem. https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/Why-solid-waste-incineration-is-not-the-answer-to-your-city-s-waste-problem?language=en_US
Brand new energy recovery facilities built to highest global emissions standards are hardly the same thing as ancient incinerators… like the kind currently burning all our medical waste.
B S
In Japan may be. Never in Cayman. Building, properly operating, maintaining,monitoring, inspecting, controlling emissions ( to which standards?), enforcing non-existing air pollution standards, disposing extremely toxic ash is IMPOSSIBLE in Cayman.
It will require an army of highly qualified, very experienced professionals, expats of course, for every function, but I believe there are none available. Besides, it would be astronomically expensive for Cayman. It takes years to train such specialists and technology changes nearly daily, therefore it must young or relatively young professionals able to learn quickly and adapt to changes. Still DOEH with its antiquated equipment or its absence, with its unqualified, uneducated, untrainable Jacks of all trades would have to monitor and enforce standards? Give me a break. The best practices in Cayman is to dump dead iguanas in piles and possibly cover it with dirt or garbage.
Even Bermuda was smart enough to send young Bermudians overseas to learn and gain experience BEFORE they even built WtE.
But read this: “ Tynes Bay incinerator pollution increases” https://www.royalgazette.com/environment/news/article/20210129/tynes-bay-incinerator-pollution-increases/
I beg Cayman not to proceed with the incinerator, WtE, call it as you wish- it will turn already toxic Grand Cayman into a wasteland, significantly increase cancer rates, require CIS closing and much more. Nobody would want to vacation in Chernobyl. Cayman never ever will reach the level of zero emissions as if is done in Japan, and probably only in Japan. They have absolutely different mentality.
☠️❌⛔️🛑
Well, there was another plan but the PPM killed it with “no dump in Bodden Town.”
PPM had enough sense to do that.
Not sure sure if you do!
You people are imbeciles. No dump in Bodden Town, no waste-to-energy/incineration in George Town, but fix the damn dump now and we don’t want to wait for a stupid EIA. What do you people want? For the government to invent teleportation technology and beam the dump to Haiti?
Think that’s what you are waiting for. No to another dump. No to WTE. You think the ongoing trash is going to evaporate?
Once you are in a $hit to your eye balls, it is difficult to dig yourself out.
WHY COMMUNITIES ACROSS AMERICA ARE PUSHING TO CLOSE WASTE INCINERATORS
They can be a threat to public health, and a poor solution to larger environmental problems. Organizers from Baltimore to Detroit to Los Angeles are working for a future without them. https://www.google.com/amp/s/psmag.com/.amp/environment/why-communities-across-america-are-pushing-to-close-waste-incinerators
Is burning trash a good way to dispose of it? Waste incineration in charts https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/is-burning-trash-a-good-way-to-dispose-of-it-waste-incineration-in-charts
U.S. Municipal Solid Waste Incinerators: An Industry in Decline https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d14dab43967cc000179f3d2/t/5d5c4bea0d59ad00012d220e/1566329840732/CR_GaiaReportFinal_05.21.pdf
INCINERATORS ARE BIG POLLUTERS
In the United States…
Waste incinerators burn large amounts of trash in giant combustion chambers, converting the waste into air emissions and toxic ash. Some incinerators use the heat from this burning to produce steam
that turns turbines to generate elec tricity—technology similar to how coal plants produce electricity. Though the incineration industry claims that this energy is clean and renewable, inciner ators are the most emissionintensive form of generating electricity in the U.S. today, and can emit more air pollutants than coal plants per unit of energy— up to 18 times more lead, 14 times more mercury, 6 times more smogforming nitrogen oxides, 5 times more carbon monoxide, 4 times more cadmium and hydrogen chloride, and 2.5 times more greenhouse gases.1
Incinerators have a high quantity of unpredictable emissions because what they burn varies wildly depending on what trash happens to be collected at any given time.2 The diesel trucks that transport waste to incinerators also spew harmful pollutants into the sur rounding community.3 And the ash that incinerators produce can concentrate toxic chemicals like lead, cadmium, and
dioxins. https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/nj-incinerator-report_earthjustice-2021-02.pdf
Local communities and environmental groups have launched strong opposition to expansion of incineration plans, citing environmental and public-health concerns.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/trash-burning-ignites-as-worlds-waste-swells-11591786758
The only real solution to all the world’s trash problem is population control. But get a government to tell thier people to make less tax (duty) payers is not gonna happen.
Should have built it more out of the way, like in Barkers.
One year is usually a bare minimum on facilities such as this. It should be no surprise but I’m sure most commenters don’t know the protocol. Lucky it wasn’t a pristine site where the Regen plant is to be located then it would be 3 years. For the benefit of those that don’t know the objective of the EIA is to establish baseline parameters for air, groundwater, and soil amongst other potentially impacted items. This takes a year since seasonal variations come into play.
7:08 Glad someone else understands the process!
What?? You mean you actually read the Integrated Solid Waste Management System for the Cayman Islands: Environmental Impact Assessment???
Well done!
Lol….This is unbelievable. Wait, it’s completely believable. Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s make it 5 more years and while were at it, let’s do an EIA on the current dumping that we do everyday.
Even better let’s send the EIA to a company in the UK to do cause nobody is qualified here anyways to do it, cheers!
Who would you suggest is qualified to it locally?
Trust me, you don’t want it, not in one year, not in 5.