St James councillors want Retirement dump issues resolved
Published:Monday | April 18, 2022 | 12:06 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
FOLLOWING LAST month’s fire at a section of the Retirement disposal facility near Granville, St James, some councillors at the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC) are adamant that the situation at the waste disposal site, which has experienced similar fires over the years, must not continue.
The councillors made their position known at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the StJMC, while responding to a report from the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) presented by Mark Jones, the public cleansing manager for the entity’s Western Parks and Markets (WPM) Waste Management Limited.
Michael Troupe, the StJMC’s minority leader and the councillor for the Granville division, told the meeting that some residents in his area are planning to take legal action in relation to the effects of the dump fire, which occurred on March 28.
“Just to inform you, there are residents in the Retirement and Granville areas who have engaged a lawyer, because they are calling me and asking if I can help them with the NSWMA problem. I want to know if I can recover all the expense that it cost me during the last fire,” said Troupe, referencing a previous fire at the facility in March 2021.
Dwight Crawford, the StJMC’s councillor for the Spring Garden division, suggested that a new site should be found for the Retirement waste disposal site, which had also experienced multiple fires between 2014 and 2019.
“The fire at the Retirement landfill is unacceptable, and it is clear that what is happening at the dump site cannot continue. I suggest that we look at relocating the dump site, so that if there is to be a fire, it does not affect thousands of residents,” Crawford told the meeting.
Meanwhile, Government Senator Charles Sinclair, who is the StJMC’s councillor for the Montego Bay North East division, demanded to know how soon a report into the latest Retirement dump fire will be available.
“In respect to the landfill, that is not the first fire you have had at the landfill. When do you anticipate to receive a report as to what is the cause of the fire?” Sinclair asked Jones.
“I do not have the report for the previous fires, and as to the one that happened recently, investigations are ongoing,” Jones answered, while noting that the cause of the latest fire is unknown at this time.
Previous fires at the Retirement disposal facility had resulted in sections of Montego Bay and surrounding communities being affected by residual smoke over several days, affecting residents with respiratory issues and other health challenges.
In July 2018, the then mayor of Montego Bay, Homer Davis, called for unauthorised persons to be removed from the dump site following a major fire at the facility at the time. At the time, Davis said security measures must be implemented to prevent intruders from potentially causing future fires.
The latest fire at the dump occurred on the western section of the property, and was extinguished by members of the WPM Waste Management Limited team, with assistance from the Jamaica Fire Brigade. Representatives from NSWMA subsequently conducted a walk-through of the facility to survey the affected area.