The stench coming off the dump over the weekend was nauseating at times, in different regions of the greater Philipsburg area when wind patterns changed and with seven cruise ships in port on Saturday. The latest word that the fire suppression project as the first step to restructuring the landfill had been delayed due to the existence of a potentially unstable “red zone” on the eastern slope of the ever-growing “Mount Trash” wasn’t very encouraging either (see Friday paper), but has since been addressed, according to Infrastructure Minister Miklos Giterson.
If even such short-term solutions seem hard to come by, that does not bode well for the immediate future. It’s interesting to note in this sense that the so-called ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao) last week signed a waste-processing cooperation agreement regarding logistics, expertise, waste policy and recycling.
Apparently the three government-owned companies involved don’t see the sea separating their respective territories as a huge obstacle to working together. What then, one would think, could stop two countries sharing one island with an open border from doing the same?
Likewise, a St. Maarten/St. Martin approach is still the best option for the continued pollution of Simpson Bay Lagoon that is so important to the tourism economy and particularly the yacht industry, which – among other things – brings private jets to Princess Juliana International Airport (PJIA). For many years now there has been talk of a joint sewage plant co-funded by the European Union (EU) for the Cole Bay area, but ground is still to be broken due to disagreement over possible locations.
In the meantime, wastewater combined with rainwater runoff and overflow from cesspools in the partly industrial area keeps seeping into the inlet, to the point where a potentially hazardous algae bloom at the Eastern end was reported not too long ago. If everyone in both Marigot and Philipsburg, but also Paris, The Hague and Brussels put their minds to it, a long overdue solution for these by now untenable situations must be possible.
In addition to the joint sewage plant and tackling the landfill, a modern shared Dutch-/French-side solid-waste separation, collection, processing and recycling system on an economically more feasible scale is really what seems to make the most sense.
