For most of the long Easter weekend, residents on the city's south side were living under a cloud of polluted smoke. The source was the 10 acre solid waste dump at the entrance to Belize City where mountains of garbage caught fire. It's become an unfortunate effect of the dry season when the extreme heat leads to spontaneous combustion of methane gas, naturally discharged from the decomposing matter. The Fire Department has been working on it since Saturday, deluging the dump with thousands of gallons of water. But that has been to no avail as the fire at the dump continues to issue thick plumes of polluted smoke into residential areas. 7NEWS went into three of those areas today and spoke to residents who all say the nasty smog spoilt their Easter.
Michelle Young, Raccoon Street Extension Resident
"It was a great Easter but except from the smoke from where they are burning the jungle. It really bothers us because the whole area smoky smoky and foggy foggy and it is not good for our health. That is what caused us to get pink eye the last time when it was going around. I don't think it is good for my kids them because I don't like it for my kids them either. It really isn't good. I felt like somewhere was burning down but its just they say it's the jungle burning. It smells bad. It really smells bad. Only garbage you smell burning. It smells bad and it's not healthy at all."
Helen Castillo, Raccoon Street Extension Resident
"At night we can't even sleep because it's so hot. You know its hot right now at night and at this night there is this lot of pollution and thing and so it affects us bad. The whole of back here was very very foggy and we have a lot of young kids around this area here. We can't even hang out our white clothes and thing like that and it is hot at night and it stinks, it stinks bad."
Oscar Williams, Antelope Street Extension Resident
"The place looked foggy because of too much smoke. You put your clothes out on the line and inside of the whole house just smell like smoke."
Elisa Williams, Jane Usher Blvd. Extension Resident
"The smoke affected me because I can't come outside and then I couldn't wash because then they are burning all kind of hospital waste and stuff like that behind the junkyard so I can't wash or pin-out my clothes because all my clothes would get smoky up. Back here looked white up until yesterday morning, foggy foggy so I had to lock up the whole of the weekend from Saturday evening. I couldn't come outside because you never know what could happen, maybe you could catch pink eye with those same smoke and thing like that so I keep inside. My baby only 1 year and 7 months so we keep inside; better safe than sorry."
Rosita Polanco, Antelope Street Extension Resident
"We went to Caye for the holiday and coming back we saw the smoke from far away. I thought it was a fire but when I get close they said it was on the road where the garbage is. Then I get to know that that is already sickness already. I have one of them (kids) in the house right now and I think it is because of that, they are laying down. He can't get up to eat or nothing because as he gets up, he goes right back to lie down and I figure that is what made him sick. I think they must could do something better than that. We know what started the fire but I think they should do something to avoid it from happening again."
Nelson Terry Sr., Raccoon Street Extension Resident
"It make you feel like you can't breathe, make you feel as though you are stuffed up. I don't think the government needs to have an open dump like that close to the city. I think that a dump of that nature should be 25 or 30 miles outside city limits."
This morning Home Affairs Minister Ralph Fonseca led his National Security
Council on a tour of the burning dump. The entourage included former Prime Minister George Price, Police Commissioner Gerald Westby, BDF Commander Lloyd Gillet, Chief Engineer in the Ministry of Works Cadet Henderson, and the city's Mayor David Fonseca. After the tour Mayor Fonseca, who responsible for solid waste management, told us CITCO is leading a multi-agency response to the problem.
Mayor David Fonseca, Belize City
"What we are looking at here is the result of a fire, presumably caused by the natural elements of the heat, the weather. It started early Saturday; the Fire Department was out here and they out the fire. At that time it was very small and then the fire resumed again later in the night into the morning and ever since the Fire Department has been working on it. You know its garbage, a lot of gases around, so it's burning and its burning underneath, right now as we speak. I think the Fire Department has done a good job to get it to where it is today. The changing of the weather over the weekend also assisted in slowing down the flames from spreading more than it did. Today as we speak we have one excavator on site and we are turning over the garbage to get the wet stuff from underneath to dampen and soak the fire that's on the top."
Jules Vasquez, 7NEWS Director
How long will the residents in the Port Loyola and in the Collet Area have to live with this impenetrable stench?
Mayor David Fonseca,
"Well as we speak, as you notice, the wind is now blowing from the east so it's taking the smoke out of the direction of the city; its blowing up the road partially into the sea. As we continue, we are mobilizing to get more excavators out here to do the same type of work so that hopefully within a couple of days the smoke will be gone."
Mayor Fonseca says a long term solution to the problem is in their national solid waste management plan which calls for a national land fill. It was originally set for mile 27 but due to environmentalists - he says it will now be located at mile 22 on the Western Highway. The current dumpsite will be cleaned up and used as a transfer station. Fonseca says all this should be completed by this time next year.
