Dump set on fire; Controlled exercise explained by Chair of Solid Waste Task Force

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer 

#TurksandCaicos, May 30, 2023 – In an effort to make the Wheeland Dump Site in Providenciales safer, the Government is undertaking a two day project to eliminate active hotspots in the landfill. Consultants from the Caribbean Development Bank who fund the project, local firefighters, the Environmental Health Department, and Kyle Knowles, Wheeland MP and Chair of the Solid Waste Task Force, were all on site on May 24th for the first day of the cooldown.

With the help of heavy duty vehicles, holes were dug in hotspot areas and smouldering refuse removed and hosed down. Large swaths of the landfill were also sprayed.

“It’s very intense and persons can see the amount of smoke coming from the hotspots,” Knowles said in a video from the site. Residents were afforded views of huge smoking craters as firefighters kept up a steady stream of water.

The area has been a source of constant fires which has subjected residents to smelly plumes of smoke on and off for years on end. Mismanagement and vandalism are fingered as two of the contributing factors to the health hazard that the landfill has become.

“Behind me,” the MP directed viewers to the smoking pits, “This is from years of just not having the right technical skillset and equipment to carry out proper waste processes– this is a very technical and tedious process and i just want to use it as an opportunity again to inform persons while this is a major undertaking we do take it seriously.”

With the assistance of the Caribbean Development Bank, the country is preparing for a complete overhaul of solid waste disposal process across the islands. Knowles acknowledged the health issues that came with the constant fires and vowed that this was the ‘beginning of the solution.’