NEARLY $4 million in additional funding was approved for an extension of the Mangrove Pond Landfill Friday in the House of Assembly. Attorney-General David Simmons said Cabinet had agreed to an extension of the operation at the St. Thomas facility while problems at the new Greenland Landfill were being resolved.

He said Cabinet agreed to the purchase of 4.8 hectares of land owned by S.P. Musson and Sons for Phase III of the landfilling operation which should last between 18 months and two years. In addition to that phase, the money also included an amount for a temporary cell until Phase III was ready to take garbage.

Opposition parliamentarian Denis Kellman said that the time extension at Mangrove Pond sounded strangely coincidental to the same 18 months to two years when the new Sandy Lane villas would be ready for sale and he predicted that as soon as that real estate went on the market the landfill operation would cease. He said it was also strange that there was not a single word of complaint from anyone on the Sandy Lane Estate and suggested that this was a strategy to prolong the air pollution problems in order to frustrate the residents of Arch Hall and cause them to sell off their properties at cheap rates. The St. Lucy MP said he understood that an agent had been commissioned to go after the Arch Hall residents and persuade them to sell. He, however, argued that to counter this act, Government ought to compulsorily acquire the 52 acres across the road, at the bottom of the landfill, for a housing development which in essence would enlarge Arch Hall. Kellman was also concerned that the landfill would impact on the underground water supply which flowed to the coast and was being tapped by the desalination plant.

He thought it a waste of money to spend an additional $3 million on Greenland, at the same time spending another $3.9 million on Mangrove Pond. This money could have gone to more useful purposes such as road construction, Kellman suggested.