Garbage buildup sparks health fears in Maloney

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Mount­ing con­cerns over garbage pil­ing up in car parks serv­ing 21 apart­ment build­ings in Mal­oney have trig­gered ur­gent calls for ac­tion from res­i­dents.

In a state­ment post­ed to her Face­book page, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Trinci­ty/Mal­oney Camille Robin­son-Reg­is de­scribed con­di­tions in the com­mu­ni­ty as “un­ten­able,” warn­ing that the buildup of waste, foul odours and un­san­i­tary sur­round­ings pose a se­ri­ous pub­lic health risk, par­tic­u­lar­ly to chil­dren, the el­der­ly and those with un­der­ly­ing health con­di­tions.

“The ac­cu­mu­la­tion of garbage, the pu­trid stench, and the un­san­i­tary con­di­tions present a se­ri­ous pub­lic health risk,” Robin­son-Reg­is said, adding that no com­mu­ni­ty should be ex­pect­ed to live un­der such con­di­tions.

She said she has for­mal­ly raised the mat­ter with the Min­is­ter re­spon­si­ble and that Coun­cil­lor Wat­t­ley has al­so en­gaged the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties. Both, she said, made it clear that the re­moval of garbage and prop­er clean­ing of the af­fect­ed ar­eas “is not op­tion­al.”

Robin­son-Reg­is added that she has re­quest­ed a clear time­line for res­o­lu­tion and pledged to keep res­i­dents in­formed as soon as up­dates are re­ceived. In the mean­time, she en­cour­aged res­i­dents to re­port spe­cif­ic prob­lem ar­eas to her con­stituen­cy of­fice for es­ca­la­tion.

While await­ing a full re­sponse from the re­spon­si­ble agen­cies, Robin­son-Reg­is thanked Coun­cil­lor Wat­t­ley, along with the chair­man and san­i­ta­tion work­ers of the Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, for in­ter­ven­ing to as­sist with cleanup ef­forts af­ter what she de­scribed as “moun­tains of garbage” were left be­hind by the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC). How­ev­er, she stressed that waste re­moval at the apart­ment com­plex­es is not the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der ac­knowl­edged the con­cerns but sought to down­play sug­ges­tions that the sit­u­a­tion had es­ca­lat­ed in­to a cri­sis.

“We are aware of the state­ment that was made. The line min­is­ter and the chair­man of the HDC both will at some point be ad­dress­ing this and any oth­er is­sue that needs ad­dress­ing,” Alexan­der said.

He said garbage col­lec­tion, while es­sen­tial, is a straight­for­ward ser­vice and that dis­rup­tions can oc­cur dur­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive changes.

“The re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion is that garbage col­lec­tion is not rock­et sci­ence,” Alexan­der said. “If there are changes of con­trac­tors and there are any kind of teething pains with the han­dover, that’s to be ex­pect­ed.”

Alexan­der al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal over­re­ac­tion to the is­sue.

“The PNM is too ea­ger to jump out them­selves and make every­thing in­to a cat­a­stro­phe,” he said. “This is not a cat­a­stro­phe.”

Robin­son-Reg­is re­it­er­at­ed her com­mit­ment to res­i­dents, say­ing she would con­tin­ue to press “re­lent­less­ly” un­til the is­sue is re­solved and the health and well-be­ing of the Mal­oney com­mu­ni­ty is safe­guard­ed.