By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government was last night leaning towards a Bahamian consortium as its best hope for resolving the New Providence landfill’s woes, amid growing pressure from Baha Mar’s new owner to deal with the fumes and associated health hazards.

Tribune Business can reveal that members of the 10-strong Waste Resources Development Group (WRDG) met with Prime Minister Perry Christie yesterday, as the Government becomes increasingly eager for a solution ahead of Baha Mar’s April 21 opening.

Kenred Dorsett, minister of the environment and housing, who has direct oversight of the landfill, was also present yesterday, which was a follow-up to a meeting last week between WRDG members and the Prime Minister.

Tribune Business sources said WRDG, whose members include companies such as Wastenot, United Sanitation, BISX-listed Bahamas Waste and Impac, has been asked to come up with a management/business plan for the landfill, together with the necessary financing, “in an extremely short time”.

“The Prime Minister knows Baha Mar is going to open soon, and that they need to do something quickly,” one source familiar with the situation told Tribune Business. “The situation at the landfill at the weekend was horrible.”

Another, also speaking on condition of anonymity, added of the Government’s thinking: “They need something done, and want to give the Bahamians first go at it. They want them to come up with a management and business plan.”

A WRDG spokesman declined to comment when contacted by Tribune Business last night, and expressed surprise and annoyance that this newspaper knew of the meetings with the Prime Minister.

One contact suggested that while keen to move forward, WRDG and its members were understandably wary and “gun shy”, given that the numerous landfill remediation and management proposals they had previously submitted to both the Christie administration and its predecessor never appeared to go anywhere.

WRDG is said to be concerned that it might be “jumped upon” and sidelined by other offers that came to the Government’s attention, but Tribune Business was told its members were determined to find the necessary financing to fund engineering and other landfill studies essential to developing a business plan.

With Baha Mar’s ‘opening’ just two months away, the Government is becoming desperate to find the ‘right solution’ at the 100-acre Tonique Williams Highway facility, and finally stop the frequent fires - and associated fumes - from undermining the tourism product plus the health of surrounding communities.

And the pressure on the Christie administration was dramatically increased yesterday. For WRDG’s meeting with Mr Christie came on the same day that Graeme Davis, the top Bahamas-based executive for Baha Mar’s new owner, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), went public with his concerns over the landfill.

“It’s a huge concern for us, as it is for many businesses and persons,” Mr Davis said of the landfill on ‘The Revolution’ radio show. “The last thing we want is a toxic plume of smoke coming over the golf course on the day we open.

“We’ve already encouraged and spoken to the existing government that they need to address it, and they’ve made a commitment to address it. We’re all concerned, and want to make sure it is addressed and goes away.”

Mr Davis implied that CTFE had failed to spot the potential health and smell hazards from the New Providence landfill, and their ability to negatively impact Baha Mar and its guests, when doing its ‘due diligence’ on the property’s acquisition.

He said: “I just noticed it recently, and it’s a concern; it should be a concern for all of us to make sure that those responsible for finding a solution do that very quickly because I think that impacts all of us.

“It’s not just Baha Mar but it impacts other resorts that are in the area. There are other developments that are in the area, and as that wind blows it has a negative impact on all of us and it needs to be addressed.

“I think it is in all of our interests to make sure that we find a permanent solution to the issues of the dump when it comes to the toxic fumes that are coming out of it.  There is a committee being  put in place and we all expect action; as good business owners and residents we demand it.”

Mr Dorsett did not respond to Tribune Business’s requests for comment via cell phone message or e-mail yesterday, continuing the silence he has maintained since previous landfill manager, Renew Bahamas, walked away from its contract in Hurricane Matthew’s aftermath.

The Christie administration placed great faith in Renew Bahamas to resolve the landfill’s woes after taking office in May 2012, awarding it a contract to manage the site and generate the necessary revenues to sustain its business model via materials recycling.

However, the landfill management contract was never put out to public tender via a specially designed request for proposal (RFP), unlike the energy sector reform and mobile communications liberalisation processes.

Renew Bahamas, unable to generate the necessary income to sustain itself amid a decline in world commodities prices, and following a fire that rendered its materials recycling facility inoperable for several months, ultimately relinquished its contract and investment late last year.

A further sign that Renew Bahamas is not coming back arrived this week after its former communications director, Andrew Knowles, returned to presenting the television news, this time with NB 12.

The landfill has subsequently been placed back into the care of the Department of Environmental Health Services (DEHS), with Tribune Business hearing frequent complaints that the order and rules established by Renew Bahamas have broken down.

The WRDG group told Tribune Business in December 2016 that it was eagerly hoping to obtain a Letter of Intent (LOI) from the Government so it could proceed with plans to take over the New Providence landfill’s management.

It pledged that if successful its ownership would be structured similar to that of Arawak Port Development Company (APD).

BISX-listed APD is owned 40 per cent by the shipping/port services industry and 40 per cent by the Government, with the remaining 20 per cent in the hands of public investors following the 2012 initial public offering (IPO).

“The shareholding of the company will be made up of the Bahamian waste companies, the Government and the general public, very like the Arawak Port set-up,” WRDG said, meaning that Bahamians will have an opportunity to obtain equity ownership.

The WRDG consortium said then that it had presented an integrated waste management plan to the Government, calling for the recycling of plastics, paper, metals and green waste, and for dealing with construction and demolition debris.

UK engineering firm, Mott McDonald, was also said to be on stand-by to perform further work once WRDG received a ‘go-ahead’ signal from the Government.

WRDG said: “We want to reassure the residents who live in close proximity to the landfill (Gladstone Road), as well as those living further away in the Carmichael Road and the Cable Beach areas, which are most affected by smoke and fumes emanating from the landfill fires, that our first steps after assuming control of the New Providence landfill will be to work on the many festering subterranean fires and to install a comprehensive fire fighting system.

“We are all Bahamians, we live here and, like everybody, we suffer the suffocating and poisonous fumes that billow from the ‘dump’ when it is on fire.....We worry about the diminishing capacity of the landfill, a landfill which can last much longer with proper management and a closely followed Master Plan.

“We worry about the effect the poisonous gases are having on our fellow Bahamians, and our foreign investors and guests who have come to enjoy our pristine environment.”