Fire inevitable at Riverton dump says NSWMA head
SECTIONS OF the Corporate Area and Portmore, St Catherine, were again blanketed in smoke on Wednesday night into yesterday morning as another fire broke out at the Riverton dump.
But executive director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Audley Gordon said that this was nothing to panic about. According to Gordon, fires at the disposal site are inevitable, and this was not a uniquely Jamaican problem.
“It could be [as a result of] combustion. There is an internal combustion there that takes place from time to time and it lights fires. This is neither the first nor the second [occurrence], and it certainly won’t be the last,” said Gordon.
He said that the area that was in flames late Wednesday night was being watched because of a fire that occurred there on Monday, and the NSWMA was happy it was able to contain the blaze.
“We quickly moved to manage it before it got out of control with the help of the Jamaica Fire Brigade. No fire is in the area at this time. We still have some smoke, and we are working assiduously to ensure the smoke dies down,” Gordon told The Gleaner mid-morning yesterday while the news team observed smoke trails at the dump.
“We are now on top of it. We are covering the area to ensure that we suffocate any residue of fire that is there and get it completely back to normal.
“We know that the smoke nuisance is there, and for that, we are very sorry, but unfortunately, it is one of those hazards of the disposal site operation ... ,”said the NSWMA head.