They Built Their Fancy Golf & Country Club Under A Rubbish Dump - Now Sandy Lane Is Complaining About The Smell. Well, Duh!

“Just below the communities of Arch Hall
and Bennetts in St. Thomas, the Sandy Lane
Country Club today added its voice to the
concerns about the recent worsening of the stench from
the Mangrove Pond Landfill.

Golf and country club manager, Elvis Medford told
Barbados TODAY this afternoon that they too have
been concerned by what they believe is an intensification of
the stench of garbage from the dump.

“Basically what we find is that there are some days when
the smell from the dump is a lot stronger, like for example
when there is a heavy turn over of garbage at the landfill.
We are directly down wind and being directly down wind
the smell is very strong. We have a restaurant and it can be
very annoying at time when it is full of people.”

The manager explained that they have had to employ
their people skills in explaining to their customers, some
of whom are very wealthy visitors, about the smells they
encounter while lunching there.

“It is never easy having to explain the smell from day
to day. What we try to do is, see what we can do to
explain the smell to them. So we try to use more pleasant
fragrances in cleaning and mopping some areas. We put
some sweet smelling stuff in the actual water so it takes
away some of the foul odor that comes from the dump,”
said Medford, adding that they have also seen an increase in
flies at the restaurant as well.

He noted though that he could not lay the blame for the
flies totally at the foot of the dump, but that they at the
club have had to look at their own practices and to boost
what they were doing in terms of keeping their surfaces
clean.

“We can’t blame it all on the landfill because some of it
is also pretty much your own hygiene ... if you have dirty
surfaces they will tend to attract more flies. So we have to
be on top of that, and naturally in the rainy time you see
much more flies around. As a result we have to clean much
more often.”

Similar to the residents, the manager said Sandy Lane’s
management has made its position and challenges with
regard to the smell known to the managers of the dump,
the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA). He acknowledged
that the residents in neighbouring communities would feel
the effects of the dump, which he believes is getting bigger.

“It is not just a problem for us but the Arch Hall
community and in some cases the smell itself is experienced
much further down wind and when you look at it, the
landfill has actually grown taller.

“It is the first time in my experience that I have seen
such. It is just getting taller and taller, so obviously it is
getting bigger. Then sometimes you get the odd fires and
that is not a good experience either. So there is heavy
smoke and sometimes it can burn for days. So I am sure
that there are residents, some of whom are asthmatics or
whatever the case may be, who would have concerns that
they would have expressed and made known.”

Among the other challenges, he said, was that the dump
trucks which use the Bennetts Road as a route to the
landfill, sometimes left rubbish behind in the roads, as some
of them travel at terrific speeds. He said they have had to
have the grounds staff clearing the road of refuse that fell
from some of the trucks. According to Medford, it was in
their interest not to leave it on the road, which runs
between the golf course and is the direct route to the
country club where customers come to eat.

Additionally, he said, another growing concern was that
of seepage and “what happens when it goes into the water
course [as] that too could have some bearing on our product.””

Source: Barbados Today 080910 p.30

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