THE Environment Department is in complete disarray over the waste strategy. Charles Parkinson said that minister Bernard Flouquet’s decision to abstain on a vote to export rubbish to France as an interim measure, coupled with deputy minister Ivan Rihoy’s opposition to the project, said much about the department.

‘We have the Environment minister abstaining, the deputy minister voting against. They’re obviously in complete disarray internally and then, to cap it all, it’s thrown up in the middle of the debate that responsibility for this area has been transferred to Public Services,’ said Deputy Parkinson, who brought a successful amendment to the department’s 2004 report sending it out on a global search for solutions.

Environment plans to bring a report in December on the range of generic solutions available, but legislation voted through on Wednesday means that Public Services is now the delegated waste authority.

Deputy Parkinson said that the Policy Council needed to decide clearly and quickly who would bring the December report.

‘It seems to me to be sensible to leave it with Environment. It has done all the homework, made the running.

‘The Public Services Department would be starting from scratch. I don’t think there’s a practical alternative to leaving it with Environment.’

He added there then needed to be an interim strategy for the period until the chosen solution was in place. ‘If it’s not going to be export to Europe, by all means look for landfill in Guernsey, but I honestly feel that’s pie in the sky.’

Public Services has prioritised investigating alternative landfill sites after raising the prospect of two privately-owned quarries in the Vale.

‘Something has to be done. Clearly more work could be done in the area of diverting waste from Mont Cuet. Quite a lot of timber goes in and a lot of inert material is used to cover rubbish over weekends and so on. There was the suggestion of bio-degradable sheeting. That may work, it may not,’ said Deputy Parkinson.

‘I’m told there’s a lot of green waste going into the quarry, which again we would need to sort out. We can nibble away at the problem, but somebody needs to produce a clear interim strategy to deal with the waste until we produce the final solution.’

Deputy Parkinson also introduced to the States two years ago the possibility of export to Europe. He said that rejection of that idea did not reflect well on the House.

But Environment could not be criticised for bringing the report that States members directed it to do, he added.

‘I think it was irresponsible not to go for the export route. We have been advised it could take five years from deciding on a final solution to bringing it into service. There’s scope for slip-ups with that route, time may be extended, and there’s only eight years left at Mont Cuet,’ he said.

‘The final years at Mont Cuet are supposed to be used for collecting residue from whatever final solution we may adopt. By then the tip will be above ground and I’m a bit concerned about the practicality of tipping ash on a hill in a relatively windy area.’

Last week, Deputy Flouquet said that accusations of the States losing confidence in his department’s work were not justified and that it had come back to the States at every stage of the investigation.

The Policy Council’s waste, water and stone sub-group’s report should be debated next month, after being left out of last month’s Billet d’Etat because it was such a full agenda.