AS THE days tick down to the February States meeting, there is a sense that the island is sliding closer towards making a catastrophic decision on a long-term waste solution – whichever way the vote goes.

Support the exhaustively researched and bitterly contested Public Services Department Suez plant and thereby go against public opinion, trigger a wave of privately-funded legal action and commit the community for a generation to something that many fear is about to become yesterday’s technology.

Back the Brouard alternative and commit Guernsey to unknown legal damages and penalty clauses for dumping Suez and gamble on the unproven Vantage Waste Processor system actually working while knowing that there is no plan B if it fails and rubbish starts piling up in the streets.

There are times when it is difficult not to feel sympathy for States members…

Few issues have seen the political view so completely out of step with islanders’ wishes. And while deputies have an obligation to do what’s right for Guernsey, can they do so in the face of overwhelming public opposition? What message does it send to the electorate when their voice is within a handful of votes of being ignored?

However well PSD has done in handling this project, it has failed to win hearts and minds in the community and that means individual deputies are exposed to parishioners, who will not be forgiving and whose anger will grow as an industrial plant takes shape on the eastern seaboard.

The other factor that will come into play is the full page advert here yesterday in which Rodney Brouard pleaded with States members to give him a few short months in which to bring his alternative over – at his expense – to prove that it works.

Ignoring that will simply look arrogant and ignorant in the eyes of the public: we States members have all the answers and need look nowhere else is the message that would send.

And yet…

What’s needed is a pause to prevent what looks like a car crash of a decision if it goes ahead.

And the only lifeline can come from Jersey, if it guarantees to take our waste for a fixed period.

That hasn’t happened – and Guernsey’s options have come to an end.