The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has ad­vanced an­oth­er step in its ef­forts to mon­i­tor and mit­i­gate against po­ten­tial pol­lu­tion threats from the Gua­napo Land­fill, with a re­cent as­sess­ment ex­er­cise in the area.

Res­i­dents of Gua­napo may have no­ticed more ac­tiv­i­ty than usu­al in and around the Gua­napo Land­fill, be­tween De­cem­ber 4th and De­cem­ber 17th, 2020.

With re­flec­tive vests and sam­pling ap­pa­ra­tus, a cross-func­tion­al team of in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal en­vi­ron­men­tal ex­perts from the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment and oth­er agen­cies, con­duct­ed an as­sess­ment of the wa­ter qual­i­ty at the Gua­napo Land­fill and en­vi­rons.

The aim of the ex­er­cise, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry, is im­prov­ing the en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions sur­round­ing the land­fill and mit­i­gat­ing against po­ten­tial health and en­vi­ron­men­tal haz­ards.

The Min­istry ex­plains that the ex­er­cise forms part of an over­all re­gion­al project ti­tled: “De­vel­op­ment and Im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Sus­tain­able Man­age­ment Mech­a­nism for Per­sis­tent Or­gan­ic Pol­lu­tants (POPs) in the Caribbean”, which aims to man­age lev­els of ex­po­sure to per­sis­tent or­gan­ic pol­lu­tants (POPs). POPs are pol­lu­tants of in­ter­na­tion­al con­cern, whose po­ten­tial health im­pacts have prompt­ed coun­tries around the world to com­mit to elim­i­nat­ing prod­ucts that con­tain them, such as pes­ti­cides, in­dus­tri­al chem­i­cals and fire sup­pres­sants.

Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, had made a com­mit­ment to this project in her 2020/2021 Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, in­di­cat­ing that such projects are tan­gi­ble rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Theme 5 of Vi­sion 2030.

Theme 5 gives pri­or­i­ty to “Plac­ing the En­vi­ron­ment at the Cen­tre of Eco­nom­ic and So­cial De­vel­op­ment” and con­tributes to this coun­try’s achieve­ment of the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals—Sus­tain­able Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties, Man­ag­ing Life Be­low Wa­ter and Life on Land (SDGs 11, 14 and 15).

“A healthy en­vi­ron­ment is crit­i­cal for a healthy pop­u­la­tion,” Min­is­ter Robin­son-Reg­is said, con­cern­ing the re­cent ex­er­cise.

“POPs can pose such a risk to hu­man life, as well as the en­vi­ron­ment. I am so pleased that this ex­er­cise is un­der­way, as it en­sures that we are ac­tive­ly mon­i­tor­ing and mit­i­gat­ing against any po­ten­tial risk by these pol­lu­tants which may be gen­er­at­ed from the Gua­napo Land­fill.”

At Guanapo Landfill - The cross-functional team which consists of the Ministry of Planning and Development, members of Tauw, the Basel Convention Regional Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean), the National Project Working Committee (PWC), the Trinidad and Tobago Solid Waste Management Company (SWMCOL) and the landfill manager. (Image courtesy Ministry of Planning and Development)

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, in part­ner­ship with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sol­id Waste Man­age­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (SWM­COL), is im­ple­ment­ing this project com­po­nent con­cern­ing POPs. This spe­cif­ic ac­tiv­i­ty un­der the project is fund­ed by the Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty to the tune of US $650,000 and is im­ple­ment­ed by an in­de­pen­dent Eu­ro­pean en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sult­ing and en­gi­neer­ing firm.

The Gua­napo Land­fill is lo­cat­ed at the foothills of the North­ern Range, ap­prox­i­mate­ly two (2) kilo­me­tres east of the Ari­ma Bor­ough and is be­tween two trib­u­taries of the Gua­napo Riv­er—the El Ce­dro Stream and the Ma­tu­ri­ta Riv­er. As is typ­i­cal with all land­fills, there is the po­ten­tial risk of en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion.  As such, the Min­istry se­lect­ed Gua­napo Land­fill for con­duct­ing this demon­stra­tion project, which will serve as a tem­plate for in­tro­duc­ing and trans­fer­ring in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice and knowl­edge to sim­i­lar site as­sess­ments, clo­sures and re­me­di­a­tion ac­tiv­i­ties in small is­land de­vel­op­ing states, as well as coun­tries with economies in tran­si­tion.

The first phase of ac­tiv­i­ty con­duct­ed at the Land­fill forms part of an En­vi­ron­men­tal Risk Man­age­ment Plan (ERMP) to man­age the po­ten­tial im­pacts and rec­om­mend ar­eas of im­prov­ing the site mod­el, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to the sur­round­ing wa­ter cours­es and ground­wa­ter.

The Ma­tu­ri­ta Riv­er in­spec­tion was car­ried out on De­cem­ber 8th.

“Find­ings from the riv­er study will, among oth­er things, iden­ti­fy oth­er pos­si­ble sources of pol­lu­tion out­side of the Gua­napo Land­fill, from ac­tiv­i­ties such as farm­ing, wash­ing of cloth­ing, light in­dus­try, recre­ation or waste­water dump­ing,” Waste Man­age­ment Spe­cial­ist in the Min­istry, Keima Gar­diner not­ed.

“This will then in­form a Risk Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Plan, de­signed to ed­u­cate the res­i­dents and wider pub­lic on po­ten­tial risks, and prop­er riv­er us­age to mit­i­gate against po­ten­tial threats,” she said.

The Plan­ning Min­istry re­ports that as part of the over­all project, a Re­me­di­a­tion Plan to im­prove waste man­age­ment prac­tices and grad­u­al­ly im­prove en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions al­so was de­vel­oped for the Gua­napo Land­fill. The En­vi­ron­men­tal Risk Man­age­ment Plan (ERMP) forms part of the Re­me­di­a­tion Plan.

The cross-func­tion­al team com­pris­es mem­bers of the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment; Tauw, an in­de­pen­dent Eu­ro­pean en­vi­ron­men­tal con­sult­ing and en­gi­neer­ing firm based in the Nether­lands; the project Ex­e­cut­ing Agency, the Basel Con­ven­tion Re­gion­al Cen­tre for Train­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy Trans­fer for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean); the na­tion­al Fo­cal Point and Chair of the Na­tion­al Project Work­ing Com­mit­tee (PWC); and SWM­COL, the State En­ter­prise re­spon­si­ble for the Land­fill Man­age­ment. The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment was rep­re­sent­ed by Ms. Keima Gar­diner, Chair of the PWC on the team.