City police called in to guard troubled Le Repentir

Jul 11, 2010 News

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Haags Bosch not ready until October – Govt. says

By Leonard Gildarie

Chaos hit the city’s dumpsite yesterday with officials calling in its security forces to man the aging facility against illegal dumping, even as Government disclosed that an almost $2B new landfill at Haags Bosch will not be ready in time for August 1.
City officials yesterday blasted the delay during a visit to the new site aback the Eccles Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara. Visits were then paid to the Le Repentir Landfill where stressed out workers attempted to cope with the piles of garbage that were dumped at the Cemetery Road entrance and at several other areas in apparent discriminate manner.
The M&CC has been attempting to pick up garbage after contractors pulled out several weeks ago due to non-payments from the city.
Last week, Deputy Mayor, Robert Williams disclosed that the troubled Le Repentir Landfill will be permanently closed from July 31. Garbage will have to be dumped after then at the Haags Bosch site.
Yesterday, Mayor Hamilton Green described the situation as chaotic. He said that Georgetown is being a “city under siege.”
Delay
However, yesterday, Project Manager of the US$9.7M project, Walter Willis, said the landfill will not be ready for August 1, but measures are being put into place for the facility to start receiving solid waste by October 5.
He added that the government is committed to having the landfill ready for activation by the contractual time of January 15, 2011.
Noting that government had wanted to ready the landfill to receive waste by August 1, the engineer revealed that there were delays in the delivery of the geo-synthetic materials, including some special “Leachate” pipes, which have to be laid at the bottom of the landfill cell before any solid waste could be dumped.
On November 9, last year, the $9.7 M contract for the landfill construction was awarded to BK International, in association with Puran Brothers Disposal Services.
Contracts were also awarded to close Cell # 2, part of the Le Repentir Landfill, and for the building of a $148M, 2.5 kilometer-long access road from Eccles to the Haags Bosch Landfill.
According to Willis yesterday, the closure of Cell # 2 at Le Repentir was done to reduce the risk of fire while the access road construction was done to facilitate an early start of work at Haags Bosch. Both projects have been completed within the contract’s stipulated time.
The engineer made it clear that the Cell # 3 at Le Repentir Landfill will continue to take solid waste until Haags Bosch is completed. He believed that while there were concerns over the capacity of the Le Repentir to take more waste, an assessment has found that it can still take another meter more.
Willis stressed that the Le Repentir Landfill will be permanently closed in October when the Haags Bosch starts receiving solid waste, “bringing an end to the period of an environmentally unfriendly method of solid waste management.
Disappointment
Yesterday, the Mayor said that he was disappointed and concerned with the fact that the M&CC will now have to find money to maintain the Le Repentir Landfill when it had already planned for other projects. He described the situation as a “city under siege”.
Ishrie Singh, Deputy Director of the Solid Waste Management division of the M&CC, noted that the city will now possibly have to take about two to three acres more of the cemetery to cater for two months more of garbage.
According to the Deputy Mayor, already yesterday’s developments of wanton dumping at the site plus the delay of the Haags Bosch landfill spells “serious trouble” for the city.
Garbage was dumped at the entrance to the Le Repentir landfill at Cemetery Road and on Princes Street, to the north.
The City Constabulary Police have been mandated to further secure the facility and to ensure that garbage dumping does not take place indiscriminately, Williams said.
Haags Bosch
According to Willis, the Haags Bosch new landfill, more than 65 acres, will include a “Leachate” system which will be used prior to disposal.
It will also include a system of pipes to fight potential fires and a gas collection venting system.
As part of the contract, management will have to ensure that garbage dumped is covered everyday, he said.
On the issues of security, which has been plaguing the Le Repentir Landfill, Willis disclosed that there will outposts stationed at the entrance to the access road leading to the Haags Bosch site and at strategic points.
As a further security measure, drains have already been constructed to line the perimeter of the facility.
The Haags Bosch site will be taking garbage from Mahaicony on the East Coast Demerara to Soesdyke on the East Bank- an area in which almost half of Guyana lives.

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