Time marches on, but waste debate still has twists and turns

THE phrase 'last- minute intervention' and waste are now synonymous. Cast your minds back to 2004 and it was Deputy Scott Ogier's last-minute requete that stalled and eventually did away with the Lurgi incinerator.

Too big, too expensive and too ugly was the message then from the public and the majority of deputies.

The contract was about to be signed when he intervened.

And now here we are again, like Groundhog Day, months away from signing a contract with Suez on what most agree is a better solution than was on the table in 2004 and many are getting twitchy feet with Deputies Jan Kuttelwascher, Rhoderick Matthews and Mary Lowe at the front of the queue.

Everyone is hoping that something better is around the corner.

Of course the Public Services Department and the States largely backed themselves into a corner over this by arguably getting the waste policy wrong in the first place.

Right back to the Roger Dadd-led waste panel report there was a feeling that getting tough on recycling and waste reduction would lead us to a much better place, the horse before the cart.

Decisions since then like rejecting kerbside recycling mean that few even believe the 50% recycling target will be hit, let alone going further.

That eyes, particularly Deputy Matthews's, are now enviously on Jersey's shiny new plant that is rising on its coast for the answer show just how tight inter-island relations are – or are not.

A short-term solution, maybe, but it would probably have been nice to check what the appetite was across the water first.

From the correspondence seen it is not that high.

PSD will no doubt remind members the Assembly has already rejected that option once before.

The export issue will be before the Jersey States in April, but even if it was successful, the Environment Scrutiny Panel's proposition would only stall the issue for another debate when its plant is up and running.

It would need a successful amendment to get things moving at a pace so that a decision is made before what is largely accepted as the end of the road here – July when the Suez contract price could rise by millions.

Some suggest the chief minister, who backed both Lurgi and Suez, has played a clever card in his proposed sursis.

The devil is in the detail – does he really believe Jersey is an option or is he just trying to put the final nail in the debate?

There are some indications that Jersey will reject taking Guernsey's waste at this first hurdle with politicians there keen not to become the dustbin of the Channel Islands.

Deputy Kuttelwascher, who started the debate again with his requete, is looking optimistically at all the last-minute options on the table, although not fighting in any particular corner.

He has become a shrewd political operator and can already lay claim to having saved the island millions with an intervention on another of Public Service's projects, the airport runway rehabilitation.

He wants the department to report back before putting pen to paper – a window of opportunity for others to prove themselves.

But what of the other options?

One of them is the Rodney Brouard-backed Vantage Waste plant.

It is not running commercially anywhere – and moves to get a test plant going here could get embroiled in red tape given it would need permission to use Longue Hougue from the likes of Environmental Health and Treasury as well as waste contractors to divert material to treat there.

Adding up the timescales Mr Brouard has given, it would be three months to get the plant operational once permission is given – and then how long to prove it is viable and reliable?

To some this would be time, and money, well spent though.

But as the D-Day for signing with Suez is racing ever closer, Public Services' grip on the debate is loosening.

A department that was so confident with where it was before has lost momentum publicly and it is this more than anything that has left the door open.

It has failed to convince a vocal proportion of the public, and they have now taken some in the business and political community with them.

Public Services has belatedly begun to fight its corner, but might have wanted some of its political allies to have begun swinging by now, too.

Come the middle of this week we should know where the States is on this.

But we know that is not the end of the debate even if the requete, sursis or amendments are thrown out.

The courts will be called into action by campaigners if things do not go their way – and what was being played out in the political arena becomes a whole new ball game.

Lord Melchett after a few too many beers in Blackadder II, uttered the lines 'you twist and turn like a twisty turny thing'.

Since the 1990s, that is exactly what the waste debate has done.