Enviroinmental Panel - Quarterly Hearing - Minister for Transport and Technical Services - 17 March 2014

Environment Scrutiny Panel

Quarterly Hearing with the Minister for Transport and Technical Services

MONDAY, 17th MARCH 2014

Panel:

Deputy J.H. Young of St. Brelade (Chairman) Deputy S.G. Luce of St. Martin

Connétable P.J. Rondel of St. John

Deputy J.M. Le Bailly of St. Mary

Witnesses:

Deputy K.C. Lewis of St. Saviour (The Minister for Transport and Technical Services)

Deputy J.A.N. Le Fondré of St. Lawrence (Assistant Minister for Transport and Technical Services) Chief Executive Officer

Director of Transport

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure

Topics Discussed:

1. Sea defences  Page 2
2. Scrap yard  Page 13
3. Household recycling centre   Page 18
4. Radon  Page 20
5. Phillips Street shaft   Page 22
6. Health and Safety  Page 23
7. Energy from Waste plant  Page 25
8. Air Pollution Control residues  Page 32
9. Incinerator Bottom Ash  Page 34
10. Legacy ash  Page 37
11. Bus contract   Page 43
12. Sewage Treatment Works  Page 55
13. La Collette site  Page 59

[15:03]

Deputy J.H. Young of St. Brelade (Chairman):

Welcome to this afternoon's meeting of the Environment Scrutiny Panel, the quarterly hearing with the Minister for Transport and Technical Services. Just to introduce ourselves on our side of the table, Deputy John Young, Chairman of the panel.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Thank you and thank you, Minister, for coming to us in force. I hope you have got somebody left looking after the ranch, as it were. So welcome to members of the media and members of the public. There is a short agenda today. We are planning to see if we can finish by 4.30 p.m. and we commence by talking about sea defences and Deputy Luce will be leading on this subject.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Minister, obviously we have had some quite exceptional sea weather in the last couple of months and the first question is: how many sites have we sustained damage on as regards all these storms recently, a number of different areas around the Island have been damaged?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

We did have some considerable damage. If I hand you over to Chris who is our Director of Infrastructure.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I do not have the exact number with me but it is basically Island-wide damage. That damage has sort of been from the odd block or stone that has moved to some significant structural damage. We have not had any catastrophic failures as in sea defences completely breached, but we have lots of areas of damage, which is a lot more significant than we have had in the past.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Are there any particular sites that stand out as being significantly damaged? Obviously I am aware in St. Martin we have had some very quick, very expert and very well done repairs. We are also aware in other parts of the Island there is ongoing work. Could you just explain the most significant places where there is work ongoing?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

In terms of value, we have had 2 lots of copings and damage to the top of the wall on St. Ouen 's Bay. The first lot have now been repaired, the second lot are under repair. We have had St. Aubin's slipway, the lifeboat slipway in your Parish, both significantly damaged but now repaired. We have had lots and lots of damage to stones pointing the granite work which has been generally shaken up by the impact of the tides. There is a significant maintenance programme to put that right. Down at Le Bourg we have had a significant movement of some precast concrete structures there, which we are currently out to tender for and we are hoping to be on site to start repairs prior to the next set of high tides.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So the work at Le Bourg is in hand at the moment?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It went out to tender on Friday. The tenders return on Wednesday this week, and we hope to be on site on the 24th. The first thing we are going to do is to carry out some pinning of the ends of the wall in the event that we do not get any further peeling back of the units, and we are also going to carry out some tidying up and repairs to the properties behind the wall. That will be clearing away the existing debris and putting a layer of concrete over the actual surface, which we call blinding, just to try and hold it together. We have got some high tides at the end of the month and we would hope that that work will minimise any further damage. But if we do get tides to the extent and storms, a couple of those, those repairs will probably be damaged again. As soon as those next set of high tides are gone we will have a contractor appointed this week and he will be in starting to make permanent repairs to the wall.

Is Le Bourg the only seawall where we do not have granite structures? I am not putting it very well but we have got proper granite seawalls just about everywhere but Le Bourg is one of the exceptions.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The Island seawalls are generally made up of 2. There are the original granite seawalls which were built probably between the last 150 to ... well, varying periods to present and all they are, they are big granite facing stones with pointing, which are faced up against a stone embankment behind. As long as the pointing is kept in place and the water cannot penetrate that then generally they work reasonably well. As soon as you get any shaking up of those and the pointing comes out and you get water driving in behind, that then pushes the granite work out. So there are repairs to those and there are repairs which we are currently on with, and have been doing, is immediately get the stones back in place and repoint as quickly as possible. We have a second section, which is generally the concrete walls. Those have either been put in place by the Germans during the occupation or seawalls which have been built probably from the 1970s onwards in terms of modern construction. The seawalls by the Germans that are just big mass lumps of concrete have generally survived reasonably well. The front faces are deteriorating off but we have not really had any significant damage to those. The ones which were built like Le Bourg in the 1970s, they were designed to take much lesser storms and lesser tides which we are now experiencing, and hence the movement.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

What is your long-term vision for places like Le Bourg then? Will these new walls you are going to put in be much stronger than what we have there at present?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

In terms of the sea defence strategy, basically we did a ... the original version of the strategy was drawn up in 2002, and since then we have been spending about £1 million a year on just strengthening and repairing what we have got. That has been an ongoing programme. That has stood us in really good stead in these recent storms. In 2007, I have got a couple of reports there, we did a review of the effects of climate change on the Island, on the sea defences. We did that report following the inter-government panel into climate change, which is a panel of the world's governments which meets on a 3-year cycle to bring all the current knowledge together. At the time when we did that report what they were saying was there was not any significant risk to the Island's sea defences but we should be planning ahead for future sea rises. We then had a second report written in 2009, which I have got here as well, which was specifically looking at each of our individual's sea defence structures and what had to happen to them in the future years.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Is that a public document?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Yes, these are public documents.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Which areas are most at risk in your second report there?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

There are 2 issues with the sea defence. One is the rising sea levels and, second, is the increased storminess and increased return of the storms. In terms of sea level rise, the structures which currently overtop are the ones which are generically too low. Those coupled with the prevailing winds, et cetera, so we have got issues and in time we are going to have to raise levels of sea defence in St. Aubin's Bay, round St. Helier Harbour there are some quite low areas, Havre des Pas, around towards the east there are areas. We know that those have to happen. We have been gathering some wave data and things over the last couple of years but they are going to be quite difficult issues to address when we have to address those because there are properties behind them, there is loss of public amenities, et cetera, and it becomes a balance to what we have had at the moment, which is accepting overtopping and amenity and property disruption/damage in the event there is only occasional overtopping, or what we are going to do when the surf frequency keeps getting closer and closer.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

The properties at Le Bourg, for example, do the house owners behind own the land all the way to the seawall?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

In some cases they do and in some cases they do not.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

That makes it even more complicated, I presume.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It does, yes. But we are working closely with them to try and limit any further damage and they are all working with their insurers to try and get their individual damage assessed.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Minister, initially you indicated that you had £200,000 to repair the damage. It became quite obvious to some of us early on that that might not be enough. Can you update us to where we are with the cost of repairs?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

Yes. Sadly that has gone up considerably. I think we are up to about £460,000 ...

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

We are more than that now. Excluding Le Bourg we are currently showing just over £500,000 to repair everything which has happened so far. Le Bourg, so we are out to tender. We estimate it could be up to £300,000 so total costs we are thinking in the order of £800,000.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Do you have that in your contingency funds to cover those costs, Minister?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

We have got a bit of it in the contingency funds and we have had talks with the Minister for Treasury and Resources.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Getting back to your views for where we are going in the future, given the weather we have had in the last couple of months, will you be bringing forward your plans to start looking at the height of some of these seawalls, so we start work much sooner?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

We would take guidance from the wider picture. We will probably wait for the next round of talks from the Climate Change Panel and see where we go from there.

The Deputy of St. Martin : When is that happening?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I have not got that date initially with me, I am afraid, but the strategy is sort of a long-term strategy over the next 20 years. We have only got funding in the order of £1 million a year so we would have to be very ... at the moment we are still going through the programme of strengthening and repairing everything which we have got. I think we need to do another few years of that before we then can go on to looking at raising it and extending it.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Did we have a spell where we did not spend £1 million a year or was that the figure we have always spent?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Prior to 2002 there was very little spent on the sea defences in general long-term maintenance. There was lots of the small term stuff being done but generally the sea defences have deteriorated into a point where they needed significant costs spent.

[15:15]

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So since that time you have been spending £1 million a year and you are slowly getting to the point where you will have gone round everywhere and you may have some money available?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Yes. I think testament to that is the way the sea defences have performed during these last storms.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes, I would accept that but at the same time if we know in the next 10 or 15 years we are going to have issues does it not ... it is a question for the Minister really. Should we not be starting this work sooner, Minister?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

As soon as we can, yes. The T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services) engineers are working on engineering solutions for flood prone areas, some of the low-lying areas of the Island. They are doing that as we speak.

Chief Executive Officer:

One of the options we have got is to provide better solutions than sandbags and some of the big bag situations we had at Bel Royal, so that there are lots of proprietary items now which are stainless steel couplings which you can open and you can close very quickly. We are looking at basically when you have got overtopping preventing some of the residual damage from that utilising a bit ... infrastructure we can take out when we do not need it but we can put in place very quickly. I think the utilisation of big bags is very successful in there to stop the water flushing through and into the area but I think we should be engineering something more permanent.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

How important is the shape of the seawall when it comes to overtopping?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It is very important. Most of our seawalls, the German ones are anti-tank walls and were designed generally with a sort of sloping face. The Victorian walls are slightly better but in general you want a recur, which is basically a slope face going away from the wall to be designed in and we have got very few of those. Those are solutions which are certainly part of our strategy going forward when we are looking at each individual defence.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

The thing is with the sandbags it was never our intention to stop the water. All we can do is slow it down so that the drains can cope with it. Even if you put sandbags up against your house it will not stop the water getting in but it will, to a great extent, filter the water.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I think just for clarity where John mentioned Bel Royal it is actually the Beaumont area, which the Minister and John were talking about. That is one area where we have brought that up the agenda and we have got engineers looking at a permanent solution for that now to see what can be improved.

Deputy J.H. Young:

You said that this issue of where the seawall is low and we get overtopping there are complex issues, you mentioned land ownership, some public, some private. You also said loss of public amenities. Do you not think, given what you have said, that there should be a case for publishing some kind of consultation paper on the long term to engage residents in those areas as to what they prefer? It seems to me there are choices there for people.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

We, at this stage, have not designed or got as far as working out exactly what those options are yet. We cannot start the consultation until we have got some options in place. As and when each of those structures comes sort of forward and is ready to be built then we will certainly be doing consultation. I think we are just not at that stage yet.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Would I be right, it is likely some people may say: "Well, I am prepared to put up with it occasionally. It does not happen too often." In my view there is a trade-off there. It is choices.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

There is a balance there. I mean we have 13-foot walls in some places and the spray from the walls may be 35 feet in freak weather.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Given the problems we have got with traffic and infrastructure, Minister, in the area of Bel Royal or La Haule, that type of area, would there be any point in looking at rebuilding the seawall further down the beach, building it higher and using the additional space for roads, bicycles, walkers and that type of thing? Could we claim some more land?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

That is a possibility but there is a height there. I am not an engineer but I am sure that has been looked at. It is quite a low lying area around the Beaumont. There are several hotspots where there was overtopping, which caused traffic disruption, Beaumont being one of them. Also on the dual carriageway, it had to be closed several times during the recent storms because not only is there spray coming over the road but there is also rocks and pebbles flying there, which will be far too dangerous.

The Connétable of St. John :

You talk about overtopping, et cetera, some years ago when we built the last marina, some 3,000 tonnes of rock armour over and above were imported for the Le Bourg area or the east of the Island, was that just a loose infill as rock armour or was it a build?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: On the marina?

The Connétable of St. John :

No, the additional rock armour that was left over, something like 3,000 tonnes was brought in for Le Bourg and this is my time on your committee.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I was on that project. It was not left over from the ... it was brought in specifically as a solution to that area. Rock armour as a general sea defence is loose packed. The size of the stones, the size based on the expected tidal condition it is going to receive and it works simply just by the voids in the rock. The water comes in, breaks up on that and it has been very successful down there. The difficulty with rock armour is it does not look very good. It can attract and catch seaweed, et cetera, but at other times the sand levels will rise but ...

The Connétable of St. John :

But that was at Le Bourg at that time?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: It was, yes.

The Connétable of St. John :

And yet we have got all this problem. Is that behind the rock armour or either side of it?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The damage we have got at the moment is not where the rock armour was placed in that particular contract.

The Connétable of St. John :

So how many hundreds of feet of seawall do they have to rebuild?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

We have got about 30 metres, about 100 feet of seawall. There are 10 3 metre long units, which have moved away from their location. We are aiming to clear away, pick those up and reuse those back in position and cast and strengthen back on top of them.

The Connétable of St. John :

So we are not going to be extending the rock armour either side?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: No.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: There will be some considerable underpinning going on.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Minister, obviously you covered a lot of ground there, with Mr. Sampson as well. What are your timescales in being able to look at these options for the future and getting to public consultation? Is this next year?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

As you have just heard, it has gone out to tender for the Le Bourg area.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Generally I mean. On these issues of low-lying areas and what we need to do, what the options are.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: It is currently an asset, 5 to 10-year strategy.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Do you mean we are not going to do it for 10 years?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

That is our current plan. Our current funding will continue strengthening the existing structures which we have got, strengthening and repairing, and we will be then monitoring what is happening in terms of sea level rise and then also at the same time we will be gathering tidal information to give us the information to prepare designs and options and then each one of those will form a separate consultation in a particular area where that sea defence structure needs to change from what it is now.

Deputy J.H. Young: Which is the priority one?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

They are split broadly into 3 bands: low, medium and high at this stage.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Can you tell us which are which? Which are high risk?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

As I said really before, the highest priorities are the low-lying areas which are generally St. Aubin's Bay, St. Brelade 's Bay, Havre des Pas and heading round to the east.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So if you had to commit to when you might get this work done, even the high risk areas, when would you aim to get that work done and what the options are?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Five to 10 years is our current strategy.

Deputy J.H. Young:

You mean do the work or to do the report on what is done?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: No, to do the work.

Deputy J.H. Young:

And to identify the options in our consultation, what is the timescale for that?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Nought to 5.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Five years.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Nought to 5. But again this is all subject to what is happening in terms of the information which is coming in on sea level rises and changes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

One final question: you have touched on St. Ouen 's Bay. One time there was talk of managed retreat there. What is the situation with St. Ouen 's Bay seawall?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

St. Ouen 's Bay had a significant sort of damage to the seawall, which had been in place for many years and in 2004 there was a study looked at as to what could be done on the wall, and there were a number of options which managed retreat was one, there were options from creating offshore breakwaters to managed retreat or to repairing existing wall. There were discussions about rock armour being placed right in front of the wall. At the time the committee of the day decided to ... gave a "hold the line" which is keeping what is there and for casting and repairing the wall. So the concrete wall which had the majority of the damage had a new face cast its full length, and that has worked very well since then.

The Connétable of St. John :

Am I right in saying that anything other than holding the line we would have to empty the refuse tips in a number of places on Five Mile Road, big refuse tips?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

No, you would be wrong. Historically there is evidence that ... there is fact that behind the wall was used as a rubbish dump in previous years. By taking the decision to hold the line such that we do not have to alter the sea defence or dig behind then everything which is infill behind the wall remains so.

The Connétable of St. John : That is exactly what I said.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Oh, I am sorry.

The Connétable of St. John :

If we had not held the line we would have had to clean up behind where all the dumps where?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

My apologies. Yes, you are not wrong, you are correct.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

But I would want to hold the line because ... also I would not really be in favour of putting rock armour further out in the bay because obviously that would disrupt the surfing community and bathers alike, so holding the line where we are is good for me.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Lots of conflicts and choices, so public consultation and whatever is done. I want to change the subject now to issues regarding our scrap metal. I wonder if you can just refresh our memory. When we last met you in November you were giving us a progress report on how the new contract is going. You answered a lot of questions there. Can you give us an update please on progress now?

Chief Executive Officer:

Since last time we have moved the scrap operation back to the original site where Picot and Rouillé were based. We have done that because we are demolishing the chimney on the Energy from Waste plant site, and the chimney comes down in the next 6 months, and we felt the scrapyard operation was too close, and it was too close. So we have relocated it to the old scrapyard site where they have established an operation there.

Deputy J.H. Young: It is it working well?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is, yes. It is business as usual. We have got a progress meeting with the operator tomorrow. They were very limited for space around the Energy from Waste plant site and they are still limited for space on the old site because there are still contamination issues on site and quite a bit of investigation work still to be undertaken.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So they have not got the whole of the site? They have got part of it?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

What percentage of it roughly?

Chief Executive Officer:

I do not know exactly, about two-thirds, I think.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Has the operator expressed an opinion about that, whether they are happy that they can operate in that area?

Chief Executive Officer:

He is not very happy because that is not what he was contracted to do. He was contracted to operate on a site of 4,000 square metres and we are endeavouring to provide him with 4,000 square metres.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Last time we met there was an indication that you had the design team working on something at La Collette. There was £1 million set aside and it was hoped it would be relocated there in 2014. Is that progressing?

Chief Executive Officer: It is, yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Are you still expecting the operator to move there this year?

Chief Executive Officer: Unlikely this year.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

We have now identified La Collette as our favoured site. Planning applications will be submitted by the end of April, subject to those going through we hope to be starting construction in January of next year with a view to him moving on probably by about April/May 2015. So we are running a little bit later than when we last informed you.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Is it just a question of flat paddock concrete, drains and catch tanks?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: In simple terms, yes. Not much more than that.

Chief Executive Officer: And a fence.

The Connétable of St. John :

Going back on the old site, have you got over the contamination?

Chief Executive Officer:

We have not. That is currently a debate between 2 environmental consultants and Property Holdings, ourselves, the Environment Regulator and the previous operator.

Deputy J.H. Young:

What is going to end that dispute? What is going to take to sort that out? Are you going to let it run for ever?

Chief Executive Officer:

We are trying our best. We have got legal advice from the law officers. We are doing everything we can to try and expedite it. We will finish it off but like many disputes there is an inertia that has built up, which is quite frustrating. But that is the situation we are in and we have got to try and get out of it.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Are the funds to cover that still in the account that was set up for this purpose?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Is it likely that the new operator will move to La Collette before it is sorted, do you think, realistically?

Chief Executive Officer:

I am not a betting man, so I am not going to comment. We were hoping to be done and dusted from January last year within 3 months.

[15:30]

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So we are 12 months behind schedule.

Chief Executive Officer:

So we are 12 or 13 months behind, yes, and all I have had is about 6 meetings with lawyers.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So it is not an issue of money. It is an issue of legal responsibility that obviously you cannot go into now but that is the issue?

Chief Executive Officer: It is.

Deputy J.H. Young:

And our law officers are on to that?

Chief Executive Officer:

Yes. We have got a very robust position for all this.

The Connétable of St. John :

I would suggest we move away from that.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Okay, I just want to know what the issue is to sort out.

Chief Executive Officer:

Just for clarity, what we did is before we moved the new operator back on that site we did a full environmental state of the nation report on what was there before they moved on so that we kept the legal position very clear.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Are there any limitations on what the current operator can now do because of this restriction on the current site?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is more about space really and these facilities are not ... it is very hard for us to encourage the operator to do more of the things that we want him to do. For example, although they do do spares, the spares facilities would be more enhanced if he had more space. They would be able to recycle things better, store things better, all of those things, so it compromises the operation and puts us in a weaker negotiating position with the contract.

Deputy J.H. Young:

In the new facility at La Collette, will that be fully enabled?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I took the opportunity to go to the scrapyard site the other day and I was quite surprised to find an operator loading an open top 40-foot container with shredded scrap and I was surprised inasmuch as this trailer must have come on to the Island empty, I presume, it was quite a large thing, I just found that an interesting way to be exporting. I thought we were going to be cubing scrap metal to make it easier to transport?

Chief Executive Officer:

The press and shear then produces a scrap, that is the way they seem to handle it. It is particularly about utilising the boats and the shipping company and how they want to receive the scrap, and the open top container seems to be the preferable solution at the moment.

The Deputy of St. Mary :  

When the operator took on the contract they agreed to pay for ferrous metals and this is no longer the case.

Chief Executive Officer: That is correct.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Is that a breach in their contract?

Chief Executive Officer:

No. No, what we have done is we have tied this contract into the actual scrap price in terms of world market scrap price, so in the previous contract, regardless of scrap price, no one got anything. On this contract there is a mechanism whereby if the scrap price is high then people receive funds for the scrap. If the scrap price drops then those funds cease, so it is just a simple indicator in terms of the world scrap price. Non-ferrous is still being paid for as normal but it is just the ferrous scrap price has dropped on the world markets and their contractor has pulled away from paying for it at the moment. It will come back if it recovers.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Is the scrap price currently monitored by yourselves?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

How satisfied are you with the progress on that contract change?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

Yes, we are very satisfied. Unfortunately, as John just said, we had to move the contractor because it was not safe to operate below the chimney as the chimney is coming down, the old Bellozanne chimney. But they are operating well in a more confined space in the old scrapyard.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Is there any reason why we are not looking to put down the slab of concrete for the operator sooner than next year?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It is purely because we have not got planning permission to do so. We are expecting to have planning permissions in August if everything goes through as requested. We have then got to construct new roads down on to the site, which will be August to December. As soon as those roads are in place then the next contract will be the scrapyard and the household recycling centre. So we cannot start the roads until we get our planning permissions. We are going as quickly as we can but that is the hold up.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It is not just as simple as bulldozing a bit of a square and chucking loads of concrete on?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: If only.

Deputy J.H. Young:

You mentioned this household recycling centre. Is that a project that you are able to publish fully yet what is proposed there?

Chief Executive Officer:

We are just about to launch that when the planning application goes in so we can provide more details of that. It is finding the right solution for Jersey hopefully.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

While we are on the subject of recycling, it seems we seem to have got there, do we have any figures to how popular the countryside recycling centres are, have been or are going to be?

Chief Executive Officer:

We do not have figures on that here. We do not have them to hand.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

But generally increasing year on year?

Chief Executive Officer:

To be honest, since the great strides made by some Constables in some Parishes I do not think has been reflected by others unfortunately. Some people lead and other people have really ... I think the recession has hit us and they are reluctant to threaten the Parish rate. Big Parishes like St. Brelade are hopefully going out to tender this year, I believe, for kerbside but the momentum we built up originally with St. John as the first Parish to do kerbside and some of the other Parishes we have really stalled. I think we are just on 5 Parishes I believe who have got kerbside recycling.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Can you tell us which 5 are working well?

Chief Executive Officer:

All the 5 that are doing it are working well.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Which are?

Chief Executive Officer:

St. John , St. Lawrence , St. Helier , St. Mary , and there is another one, which I cannot remember.

Deputy J.H. Young:

I think now we will move to another subject. We will come back another day to the issue of recycling of waste generally. Radon.

The Connétable of St. John :

We are in the middle of or more or less finishing and come to an end of our radon review. A number of items have come out in relation to working practices on the ground. Given T.T.S. have the Cavern, a number of underground pumping stations, culverts and so on and so forth, what protection is there for the workforce, working in these areas, given we do have build-ups of radon? What equipment is used? Is it monitored regularly by your department or is it not?

Chief Executive Officer:

The key area, as you quite rightly pointed out, is the Cavern. We monitor radon in there and we have been monitoring in there since it was built and since we have operated it. We do radon tests and we have recorded levels of between 20 and 40 becquerels per cubic metre, and that is to allow the contract, I think the maximum level you can be exposed to is 400 so well within the limits. The main priority for us in terms of access into any subterranean structure is for adequate ventilation and the adequate ventilation in terms of hazardous area gases, methane and any of the other gases which can cause damage to humans and human health are basically dealt with through either forced or natural ventilation. That also deals with radon at the same time. But it is something that we are conscious of and we monitor predominantly though in the main tunnels and the Cavern. In things like pumping stations and our smaller sewers because of the hazardous area confined space elements of it we are dealing with that in a slightly different way, but we do monitor it as much as possible.

Deputy J.H. Young:

And your workforce are fully aware of the implications of Radon?

Chief Executive Officer:

Certainly in those areas and it is something that I will just make sure and check that everybody is aware of it because I think it is a subject some people can forget about. But I will check that with my drainage team.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Your new Phillips Street shaft and tunnels, obviously those will carry on with monitoring equipment, I presume. But when will those be complete?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

They are running a little bit behind. Currently we are just about to start tunnelling to break through into the existing tunnels. We are expecting the full works to be completed by roundabout the middle of this year.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So therefore you would have some blind spots where you have not got a circulation of air if you still have not broken through.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

At the moment we are working to connect into the existing tunnels and they are creating a reception chamber where the tunnelling machine will come through and join on the existing tunnel. All the workforce who are working within that existing tunnel, they are the contractor's staff, not ours, but we took some radon levels prior to the works commencing, and John was referring to some levels for 20 to 40 becquerels. Their maximum allowance is 400. The contractor down there has an independent company who monitors and advises him on radon. As far as we are concerned they are currently working within the approved levels as borne out.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Moving along slightly, you have obviously got some culverts, et cetera, and some seawater culverts with that, and given that radon is produced from seawater, among other things, so it is everywhere, including in the human body, when you are working on culverts, et cetera, and some of these would have been built probably hundreds of years ago, are these also tested on a regular basis or do you just allow them to vent naturally?

Chief Executive Officer:

Our current practice is the more natural ventilation, better isolation ... what you are trying to do is make a hazardous area classification declassified so it is safe for people to go in there but that is predominantly around the potential issues of septicity and the other noxious gases that can be in there and that will cover the radon, but we need to just double check that in those areas. Very rarely we go into these places ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

That is right, so you would have a build-up.

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group:

I was just going to say a lot of these culverts you are talking about we do not actually man access and the flow of the water through them does provide some ventilation anyway. The main issue with radon is, like John says, in the Cavern and surface water tunnel that runs under town. We have extractors that are working at the moment and that has got better ventilation. Radon exposure, one of the key things about the current issue is prolonged exposure when you are talking about up to 40 hours a week. If it is a short-term generation, which is most of what our work is, it is not usually an issue.

Chief Executive Officer:

Just on a final point. With the advent of C.C.T.V. (closed circuit television) cameras we minimise the access into these areas now for all staff and personnel. The amount of accidents in the history of sewers networks, and the amount of people that died, the less invasive you are the better.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If I could go back to the Phillips Street shaft: Minister, is this a fixed price contract at Phillips Street.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: Yes, it is.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I am quite upset to hear that we are looking now at the middle of the year for finishing and I am just wondering when we are going to get the road network back in town back in use again because we were promised this job would be finished last year.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: The road network is slightly different.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The problem streets reopened a week ago so the actual road network around the site is now back to normal.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So you can drive past the Art Centre now?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: You can now, yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So all that network is back in use?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Is now back in use, yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

That is very good news. Is there a reason why we are taking longer to do the work than we expected?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

We ask the contractor that question every week. Basically it is a very difficult technical job in terms of managing the ground waters, to enable the actual structures to be built. It is probably in the most difficult ground conditions we have got anywhere, certainly in town. It is just basically taking the contractors ... every activity they undertake has taken slightly longer than what they had anticipated and the combination of those add up to the current delay we are looking at at the moment.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Do the States Employment Board make you directly responsible for all the hazards and such, including radon?

Chief Executive Officer:

That is an interesting point. The States Employment Board are ultimately responsible for the health and safety of the States employees and that is delegated through the chief executive and the chief officers to be responsible or the health and safety of their staff.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Because as far as I am concerned the States Employment Board are not made aware of all the hazards which are faced in your working environment. In that respect, is it the chief officer who takes the responsibility for the health and safety issue or maybe is it the Minister?

Chief Executive Officer:

I think it is the chief officer because he goes through to the States Employment Board, not to the Minister.

[15:45]

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Should the States Employment Board be made more aware of all the dangers and hazards which your ...

Chief Executive Officer:

The States Employment Board is given a quarterly report on health and safety from the Health and Safety Manager, and the chief executive but I would welcome the Health and Safety Board's interest in some of the more practical risks that we face.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Can you speak up please because it is ...

Chief Executive Officer:

I lead on health and safety for the States of Jersey in supporting the chief executive but the relationship with the States Employment Board is something we are trying to get a lot better, particularly on health and safety and the risks associated with it, but it is a very diverse organisation and it is hard to really talk about the whole thing in a very short period of time, the time we have with the States Employment Board, so it tends to be exception reporting with the States Employment Board, and tends to be about accidents and progress which the department's Health and Safety Manager is currently doing and will be doing in the future.

The Deputy of St. Mary :  Thank you.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Just to be clear, you said that the measures you are taking are checked by the Social Security inspectors, is that right? Do they come and review the actions you are taking to ensure health and safety at work?

Chief Executive Officer:

Social Security are regulators for health and safety so it is not their actions to check. They are our regulator so it is the incumbent on ourselves as the employer to look after health and safety within the organisation.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So they only come in if there is a problem or a complaint?

Chief Executive Officer:

We have a good relationship with Colin and his team but I think, and this is the confusion people have, people think the Health and Safety Inspectorate have responsibility for health and safety. They do not. Their responsibility is as a regulator and they regulate States of Jersey just as they do regulate private industry within Jersey.

Deputy J.H. Young:

The responsibility that sits on your shoulders for this, does that include making your team aware of the hazards and measures of potential hazards? Does that responsibility sit on your shoulders as well as making sure that the measures to guard against it are properly done?

Chief Executive Officer:

Yes, health and safety is not just about a rule book. It is about your culture and your approach to health and safety and how you deal with it. T.T.S. probably are one of the top 3 or 4 departments in terms of changing the culture on health and safety with lots of effort on making health and safety the responsibility of all people who work in the States. It is something we are very happy to brief you on.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Thank you for that. I am going to move on now.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

On all our emails you will probably see a little badge at the bottom: "A safer place to live, a place for safety ..."

Deputy J.H. Young:

It is good to hear that, Minister, so I think that is very reassuring. Thank you for clearing that point up. I think, John, you were going to talk about the Energy from Waste plant, is that right?

The Deputy of St. Mary :

There are reports that the Energy from Waste plant is continually out of action and at the moment there are rumours that the waste is being carted away and stockpiled. Is that still ongoing?

Chief Executive Officer:

No. The Energy from Waste plant has run ... we think we know in this room that we have held the contractor to account and it has taken us a long time but we have made, through an excellent contract and excellent project management, the contract to do what he said on the tin in terms of making sure the plant performs reliably and to a high standard. Unfortunately to do that remedial works they have had to do a lot of outages. Last year was particularly difficult and we finished the last major outage and tube replacement so there were a lot of issues with quality of tubes in the boilers in September and the plant ran continuously 2 streams all over winter, all over the Christmas and we had a planned shutdown, which was to do some final works which were needed to be done so that the contractor could effectively finish his commissioning tests and get off site. That was the last shutdown we have done, but it was a planned event. The bunker was empty when we started it and that is what they are designed to do. We have got enough resilience in the bunker, resilience in the system, so that we could shut it down, do this work. The turbine particularly is a common element so if there is any specific work on the turbine, which is quite rare because they are a very ultra-reliable device, but there are some elements we needed to resolve on the turbine so we had a full planned shutdown. Since then the plant has been running and operating superbly and we are very pleased with the performance. The final performance tests are happening this month and hopefully they will pass and the contractor will leave the site. But we have been very robust in the contractual position. We have held back monies. We have done exactly what we should have done as an Island and we have got an excellent plant. It has taken us longer than doing it the right way first time but we have an excellent plant for the next 25 years.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

When you are doing these kind of works do all its contractors still take their waste to you and dump at the E.f.W. (Energy from Waste) plant?

Chief Executive Officer:

Yes. Putrescible waste has never been turned away from this site since the plant lit up in 2011. What we have had to do is deal with some of the bulky waste and stockpile some of that throughout the major work, but we are not planning to do that again probably for the next 5 years, and if we do we will probably do it in a slightly different way. What it is about, it is about managing the bunker predominantly. We have been through a difficult time with the contractor but I can reassure you and everybody that we have done a super job in terms of getting good value for money for the States of Jersey and getting the contractor to fix the things they did not get right the first time round.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Do the haulage companies get advised when you are having a shut down for this kind of routine maintenance rather than come to their own conclusion that the plant is broken down?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is a good point, and I think it is perhaps something we should look into because the rumours and jungle drums are far more exciting than the reality, are they not, and I think if we perhaps did better P.R. (public relations) to explain it is a planned shutdown, that might be a better option. Because it is far more fun to say that we have got it wrong and it is a disaster than the truth, which is it is a super plant and we have made the contractor get it fixed and operating very satisfactorily. I think I will take that point on board.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

We tend to get all the negative aspect of it when it is not necessarily broken down, it is just routine maintenance.

Chief Executive Officer:

Lack of understanding perhaps.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

If everybody who uses the site could understand that, that might not happen.

Chief Executive Officer: Yes, good point.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

It is not just a case of dumping the rubbish and burning it. As John just said, it is putrescible waste and we get other kinds of waste, old furniture, wardrobes that have been broken up, et cetera, and the guys down there have to blend it very carefully to make sure it is the right calorific value otherwise you get hotspots going through the burners. So it is all very cleverly mixed.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

You mentioned 25 years; is that the expected life of the plant from now, so we will have another 25 years out of it?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is me being not very good at maths. The asset life is 25 years, we got 30-odd from the previous one. It depends really on the configuration of the waste, how reliable it will be, what sort of waste it will be in the future. Hopefully, if we can recycle more of the products which are harmful and difficult for the incinerator to handle then we should get a longer life. But again the life might change because of environmental standard changes and the change of behaviour and capacity within Jersey. There are many other issues that could affect it.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Do we know if there is any likelihood of an additional load being placed on the incinerator in the coming year or so from somewhere over the water?

Chief Executive Officer:

I spoke to our colleagues in Guernsey this morning, and they are moving forward very successfully with their kerbside recycling across the Island. They are going out for expressions of interest and tenders for their infrastructure to export waste. We will see. I think under the current climate Jersey is very unlikely to be the destination of their waste.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Are you getting the full power output out of that plant now in terms of electricity?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes we are.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Looking to the future, what is your forecast in terms of where it can cope with the increase in potential impact of changes, for example, in Jersey's population and waste arisings?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is the question really, and I think the reason we went for 2 streams, the reason we have got a big bunker, the reason we have built resilience into the model, is because that is ... the question you have asked is unanswerable. But we are fairly confident. We also, from specifying the plant, and paying for the plant to the plant being delivered we had a very big recession, which knocked 10,000 tonnes off the waste being presented to the site. What that does is it resets the capacity of the plant quite well so I think we have got quite a bit of resilience in there. Let us be honest, we are not the best at recycling as an Island and we have got a long way to go in terms of better commercial recycling, recycling from Parishes, so there are a lot of opportunity to take more waste out of the waste stream that should not be going through an Energy from Waste plant to maintain the capacity within it.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Can you set a target for that? What would it be?

Chief Executive Officer:

I am not setting targets that I cannot achieve because they are not in my control.

Deputy J.H. Young:

If you set one, what would it be?

Chief Executive Officer: For recycling?

Deputy J.H. Young: Yes.

Chief Executive Officer: 40 per cent.

Deputy J.H. Young: What is it now?

Chief Executive Officer: 32.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Is there not a case that if you are going to run an incinerator that you should do it properly, you should put more stuff in it and not recycle it? Some of the high calorific paper, cardboard, wood, that type of thing. Should we not encourage people to put that in the incinerator and generate more electricity?

Chief Executive Officer:

I think in the old days when it was a bit of a bonfire with a bit of cheeky gas you are cleaning yes, but when you consider the gas-cleaning equipment operating costs, the A.P.C. (Air Pollution Control) residue, which is a hazardous waste that comes from there, and the fact that a lot of the recycling products you mention have a value even with the export cost, for each product you have got to do an environmental impact and a cost benefit analysis of them because I think that balance shifts but I think we have got to make sure that we are also on the right side of that.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So we do not have a problem with the calorific value of this product we are putting into the incinerator at the moment?

Chief Executive Officer:

Apart from it is perhaps too high and there are lots of products I think we can recycle and recycle more effectively. The biggest challenge we face is there is no cost, there is no charge for putting waste through the Energy from Waste plant.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Is that something that you will be looking at?

Chief Executive Officer:

I personally would love to because I think it would help change behaviours and help us recycle more products, which need to be recycled.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

But the money you pay in your rates, that is just for someone to take your rubbish away and bring it down to us. There is no tipping charge whatsoever.

Chief Executive Officer:

The key thing, I think, is from the commercial premise. If you look at Guernsey they recycle many things because their commercial waste charge is £180-odd a tonne at Mont Cuet. If we had £100 per tonne gate charge for commercial waste in La Collette that would change behaviour overnight and there would be far more people recycling far more products than we currently have at present.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If that charge was introduced would that charge be spread evenly across the population or would the refuse lorries have ability to weigh the product as they are taking it away from individual households?

Chief Executive Officer:

I personally would not do it on individual houses. I would do it on commercial waste first of all.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So there would be a general increase charge across the Island for disposal of refuse to the Energy from Waste plant?

Chief Executive Officer:

The key thing is a developer, for example, can bring 2,000, 3,000 tonnes of roofs and beds and everything from a demolition site and the Energy from Waste deals with that for free, thank you very much. Whereas any stone and aggregate or anything that goes over the tippage is charged at £30 a tonne. It seems an imbalance and I am not sure why the people of Jersey should be paying for a developer's waste from his site, which is what we do at the moment.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So that is the first place to start, is it? The commercial waste?

Chief Executive Officer:

Absolutely. I think it would be the place you would start and probably the place you would stop so you would allow the public free waste disposal through their taxation but for the commercial user should an Energy from Waste plant of this complexity and standard be a free good?

Deputy J.H. Young:

How many tonnes of that a year?

Chief Executive Officer: About 30,000.

Deputy J.H. Young:

30,000 tonnes and you are talking about a £100 per tonne charge?

Chief Executive Officer: That is just a figure I made up.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So we are talking £3 million, yes?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

[16:00]

Deputy J.H. Young:

So potentially there is an income source of £3 million a year. Has that been properly looked at, subject to any reports?

Chief Executive Officer:

I think it goes into the political domain very quickly when you talk about charging.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If you had an extra £3 million a year, Minister, would you start your sea defence programme a bit earlier?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

We can always do with extra money. As I mentioned previously we are in talks with the Minister for Treasury and Resources ...

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Cleverly avoided the question. Would you start your sea defence programme earlier?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

We could always do with more money. I would love to start tomorrow, yes.

The Connétable of St. John :

It might be on the roads instead, Minister.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

It could be roads and drains. Just to emphasise, there are no plans whatsoever to introduce a domestic tippage charge.

Deputy J.H. Young:

No, but what has come out is there is an opportunity, as we said there is an inconsistency between the way we charge for material that goes on to the tip bit on to the solid waste stores opposed to what we incinerate. What income do we get from what gets tipped and does not get burnt?

Chief Executive Officer:

Inert waste that goes over the tip end at La Collette is ... the income varies depending on how many dig-outs there are and what the material is, but I think last year we were about £1.5 million of income.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So we get £1.5 million in for that, the rest we do free. How much does the plant cost a year to run roughly?

Chief Executive Officer: I do not have the figures.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Okay, perhaps you would let us know.

Chief Executive Officer: It is a substantial amount.

Deputy J.H. Young:

The A.P.C. (Air Pollution Control) residues from the plant, what is happening to those now? Are they being exported?

Chief Executive Officer:

The contract will be signed by the Minister on Friday and export will start next month.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

How long do you expect it to take to clear the backlog of A.P.C. up?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Around about a year to clear.

The Connétable of St. John :

Is that R.O.-R.O. (roll on-roll off) type export or is it a ship comes in especially to remove it?

Chief Executive Officer:

The contract is roll on-roll off and it is under a ... the limit is the T.F.S. (transfrontier shipment) licence. There is licensing about transporting hazardous waste and it is the T.F.S. licence in that giving us the optimum solution in terms of export. So it is going to be 15 loads a time. It is batched under one T.F.S. licence I believe.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Does the 12-month export period include the amount of A.P.C. we are going to create during that 12 months?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So at the end of 12 months there will be nothing?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

There will be nothing and anything else which the plant produces will be exported.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Where are we with bottom ash at the moment? Are we making any strides towards recycling or reusing?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

At the moment we are characterising our bottom ash. Before we can determine what we can do in terms of possibilities for export or recycling there is a protocol which requires us to do a series of testing that ash for quite a significant period. That started and we are progressing along with that.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Are there any initial results from it?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It looks like we should be able to export it if we wish. We will end up with 3 options for bottom ash: either continuing to put it in the ash cells, to recycling part of it, selling it on-Island and putting the remainder in the ash cells or it is exporting the whole amount. What we promised you previously

was an update on our ash strategy by the end of the first quarter, which includes what we are going to do with A.P.C. and bottom ash and a general view on it. Now, that is being prepared as we speak, so we will probably be about 2 or 3 weeks late with that. I would think certainly by the end of March we should be able to have that report to you. That will detail broadly what we have said: A.P.C., export, 3 options for bottom ash until we get the characterisations done, which then allows us to do some tendering, which gets us some prices, and then it allows us to make the final decisions on what we do.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Does that affect which option you take on the bottom ash? Will that affect whether or not we need to do concrete hardstandings and so on?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It will. If we elect to export, then we will not need to create a bottom ash recycling slab. If we elect to put it all into the current pit and not to recycle, we will not need to create a bottom ash recycling slab.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So this will all be covered in the report?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: It will be.

Deputy J.H. Young: Okay, thank you for that.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

It was an election pledge so I am looking forward to signing a contract and getting the A.P.C. on its way.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So you are going to put the flags out on the day the first export takes place?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: I will be down there waving it goodbye. [Laughter]

Deputy J.H. Young:

Or are you going to not tell anybody about it?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

I am teetotal but tempted to crack open a bottle. [Laughter]

The Deputy of St. Martin :

What will be the limiting factors to exporting the bottom ash? If we are trying to avoid continuing to fill up heaps and mounds down at La Collette with bottom ash, we really need to be exporting it or using it somewhere else. What is going to be the limiting factor? Is it going to be the quality of the heavy metals, the contaminants?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The quality depends on where it can go and how it can be recycled or disposed of. Then, once that is determined, you then have the costs of where it can go to, et cetera. It may be that it is cheaper for us to leave it on Island. It may be that it is cheaper to export. There will be financial considerations and environmental considerations. We do not have all the information together on that yet, but I think the main consideration will be what is currently in the ash and that will determine locations and cost. We will then have some options. We may be able to change what is in the ash by changing habits, as John was describing earlier about recycling, et cetera, and what goes to the incinerator and what comes out of the end of it. We are not quite there.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

The contaminants in the bottom ash at the moment, if you had to guess, would you say that is coming from commercial or is that coming from household refuse?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: I would say commercial, I think.

Chief Executive Officer:

It is a combination, but I think if you look at the sort of promotion we have done predominantly around batteries and electronic goods in schools and kids, we are getting good behaviour from the general public. I think from the commercial side there is less of an imperative there.

The Connétable of St. John :

What about the effluent from the pits? Is that still going in the digesters?

Chief Executive Officer:

The effluent is still going back to the sewage treatment works, yes.

The Connétable of St. John :

Therefore, anything like heavy metals, mercury, chromium, et cetera, finds itself back into the digesters, which in turn will find itself back on the land.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

That was a separate question I think from this Committee, and a report was produced and demonstrated that the actual levels were not significant.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

As John has just touched upon, I think the quality of the ash has improved considerably. If you look at most supermarkets now, they have battery recycling posts outside.

The Connétable of St. John :

Yes, I did pick that up but I just wanted to make ... the levels are dropping but is that being monitored in such a way that you are sure there are no spikes?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: Yes.

Chief Executive Officer:

The bottom ash predominantly is hygroscopic. It does soak the water in. What we tend to be moving is rain water. If there is an open pit, the rain water falls on it and we pump the rain water out.

Deputy J.H. Young:

What is the method you are going to use of handling the legacy ash that gets dug out of the Esplanade? Presumably, that is treated as contaminated?

Chief Executive Officer:

We will utilise similar methods as defined by the environment regulator as we did on the Castle Quay property, which is monitoring and if there is any ash found then that would be treated as a contaminant.

The Connétable of St. John :

A lot of that would have washed through over the last 10, 15 years.

Deputy J.H. Young:

You mean will it be moved to La Collette or treated onsite? What is ...?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

There is a protocol which was written up when they first started excavating there and that has moved on to each contract. Basically, as excavation goes ahead, if any ash is identified the ash is separated into wagons and covered and comes down to the ash pits at La Collette and goes into the same pits as the new ash coming out of the plant.

The Connétable of St. John :

Will there be a charge to these developers?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Yes, there will, yes.

Deputy J.H. Young: Will that get exported?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It is coming in as bottom ash. It will go into the bottom ash pit.

Deputy J.H. Young: But it is contaminated?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Sorry?

Deputy J.H. Young:

Sorry, I thought the historic ash, the legacy ash, had got A.P.C. residues in it. Is that correct?

Chief Executive Officer:

Well, it did not have A.P.C. but it had fly ash in it. We did not add any lime or carbon so it was not A.P.C. residue. It was what you would scrape out of the chimney of an open fire.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Right, so it was in excess of the trigger levels for contamination?

Chief Executive Officer:

The ashes from the old plant were not of the standard of the ashes from the new plant but, as the Constable suggested, this has been under the ground for how many years now, that area?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: That was about the 1980s, that area.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So you think it has all been leached out?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The ash which went into the ground at West of Albert is the same material which when that stopped being filled was transferred to La Collette and went into the ash pits. So there are probably about 15 or 20 years of those ash pits at La Collette with that mixed material already in and the mound behind the incinerator or the new E.f.W., which is already grassed over, has exactly that. So the material which they are excavating out is effectively the same material which is already in a lot of the pits anyway.

Deputy J.H. Young:

But the new stuff we dig out of the Esplanade is going to go into your current open pit where you are putting A.P.C.r. (air pollution control residue)?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

No, the A.P.C.r. is a specific hazardous waste pit for A.P.C.r. only, but we also have bottom ash pits which are the open pits. The material which is excavated out of the Esplanade, which is the legacy bottom ash and fly ash mixed together, if found will be transported and go into the bottom ash pits, as agreed with the waste regulator.

Chief Executive Officer:

One of the main treatments for bottom ash is time and weathering. I would suggest 1980 to now has given it a substantial amount of time for weathering. Because what happens is the pH corrects and whatever contaminants are in there gets locked in.

Deputy J.H. Young:

One question and then I will close on this. The forecast volumes for that, have they given you any?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Yes. There is around 170,000 cube of material[1], of which potentially 10 per cent they are estimating as ash.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So how many tonnes is that?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Roughly double.

Deputy J.H. Young: So 340 tonnes?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: Thousands.

Deputy J.H. Young: Sorry, 340,000 tonnes?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I am doing that from memory. I might just like the opportunity to come back to you with those, but I am pretty sure it is 170,000 cube.

Deputy J.H. Young:

We have stocked up how many in there at the moment in the mounds? I am just trying to relate the proportion of extra ash you are going to have to cope with.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Right. The current ash pits which we have, for example, the bottom ash pit which takes in the annual outturn from the new incinerator, we are probably talking about ... I think we are getting 12,000 to 15,000 tonnes a year. So we are expecting ...

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I think on those calculations it cannot be right because the dig-out at West of Albert would then equate to 20 ash pits, which cannot be right.

Chief Executive Officer:

No, the 170,000 cube is a total amount. Ten per cent is the estimate on ash. So it would be 17,000 cubed, which is 30,000 tonnes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It would be 170 less 10 per cent. What has happened to the 90 per cent?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

That is inert material to excavate. They have a requirement to try and recycle as much as that on site, which they are estimating at 20 per cent, and the remainder of that will come to La Collette for recycling and then any waste will go over to the pit at the end.

The Connétable of St. John :

That was not an engineered fill, that top end, was it?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure: No, it was not, no.

The Connétable of St. John :

So we do not know what we are going to get.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Getting back to La Collette, we have spoken about an area of concrete for the scrapyard, a potential area of concrete for weathering of bottom ash. The Minister for Planning and Environment may not have a masterplan, but do you chaps have an idea of where things are going so that we are avoiding moving too much stuff around?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Yes, we do. We have a masterplan. It has been developed and, as John said, we are just about ready to launch that. The planning application for all of it will be going to Planning in April.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So the scrapyard concrete pad is part of a masterplan for the whole area?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

That is correct. It is our future activities at La Collette. We have a masterplan which is looking forward nought to 10 years. That includes the new scrapyard, the new household recycling centre, new road systems, what we are doing with the bottom ash, the headland, our aggregate recycling, et cetera. That is being pulled together into a presentation, which the Minister will be ready to launch in 2 or 3 weeks' time.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

What is the current estimate for the whole scheme to be full down there?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Based on our increased recycling rates which we have been doing, and with our tender with our new aggregate recycling contractor - we are looking to increase rates - we are looking at now 10 to 15 years to fill to platform level. Basically, that is to fill everything in. The current Island Plan then shows a super-fill bund or hill in round terms around the edge of the site.

[16:15]

We are currently creating that by putting ash pits and ash mounds down there at the moment. If we decide to export ash, then that site will last significantly longer because we will be able to fill that space with inert material.

The Connétable of St. John :

That ash we might be exporting for road works or whatever, there is no chance of us using any of that ash for making our bunding for the scrapyard or anything?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

If we elect to continue putting ash in what we call cells, we are creating the extremity of those cells with ash anyway. So all we are doing is the ash packs down fairly hard and then we are just putting a small landscape face on it, then we can green it over.

The Connétable of St. John :

I was just wondering if we could not have mixed it with the concrete as the bed for the new scrapyard as an aggregate.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It is not the right type of ash for mixing with concrete. There are types of ash which you can use, but that is not the type.

Deputy J.H. Young:

This super-fill you spoke of, what is the height of that going to be?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

In the current Island Plan there is not a specified height at present.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So the planners have not given you a limit?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

No. Once we have finalised our ash strategy in terms of what we are doing with bottom ash, then we will be putting in a planning application, what we call the headland, which is the hill or the super-fill. If we are exporting ash, then that hill need not be so large.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Surely we will be better off in the long run to export or to not go to super-fill and use that flat area that we have reclaimed for buildings, car parks, something useful, rather than just a mound full of ash.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I think it needs to be remembered that La Collette has this area because of the location of the fuel farms down there. So we will not be able to create houses, et cetera, down there because there is a planning restriction on what can be built there. We already have significant areas of the land already with ash cells on it. All we will be doing is potentially not building that any higher.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: But I would like to export as much as I can.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Okay. Well, I think we will move on from that point. I am sure we will come back to it another time. Thank you for that additional information. I would like to move now to the issue of an update on our bus contract. Minister, we have not yet seen any figures from you on the usage that you said to us about a year ago you would let us have. Can you tell us when we might see some figures and give us perhaps a couple of highlights of when we do see the figures what they will show us?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: Tristen?

Director of Transport:

Bus revenues were up last year between 3 and 4 per cent and so we have seen a rise in passenger numbers. The like for like figures for January/February this year I think were up 1.1 per cent. Where we have an issue, and I think this is probably what you are referring to, was the aspiration to have an automatic system which would provide punctuality figures and the like. We are still having problems getting the 2 different systems to talk to one another. There is one system which is embedded within the ticket machines on the buses, which records who the driver is, what route the bus is scheduled to travel on, what its departure time is, and the number of

people who get on to that actual journey. That is owned by the bus company. Then we have the States' system, which is known as the B.I.C. (bus interface controller) system, which says, using G.P.S. (global positioning system) virtual gateways, where that bus should be at any particular time. We have had difficulty getting the 2 databases to communicate correctly to one another and we have been going through iteration after iteration trying to get down to the root cause. We have solved a lot of the problems and I would say we are about 90 per cent of the way there now, but we have still not come to a conclusion. I would hope we would get there in the next couple of months, but until then we cannot use that data to provide how many buses departed on time. However, we have been keeping manual records and those manual records suggest that in terms of buses leaving the bus station about 97 per cent are leaving on time. Now, those are figures that Liberty Bus keep. We do a manual check on that. We do not get to check a lot of them, but we sample. We are sampling about 2 per cent and our 2 per cent sampling rate verifies that. So there is a useful check there.

Deputy J.H. Young: Thank you for that.

Director of Transport:

Sorry, if you wanted to get more into depth, then we could set up a particular meeting on that with the people who have the technical expertise.

Deputy J.H. Young:

No, I would like to stick to high level if I can. We went through obviously the traffic crisis this year with the closure of Mount Bingham. Would it be true that that significantly affected the bus company and their performance?

Director of Transport:

Yes, that definitely would have done, the flooding in the mornings during peak traffic and the like, yes.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

So flooding, J.E.C. (Jersey Electricity Company), Mount Bingham, it has been pretty challenging.

Director of Transport:

Yes, there are several things been going on this winter which has been disruptive to the traffic.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Were you able to take any remediation measures to assist the bus company in getting round some of those crises?

Director of Transport:

Certainly, in terms of where they are planned events, then we work closely with the bus company in order to look after the customers' interests. So we will insert additional services in a route to ensure that the timetable is maintained. We will run shuttle bus services and the like to move people. We have always done that, but what I would say is that we are becoming increasingly sophisticated in our planning to arrange those types of services during road works and the like. But we can only obviously do that for planned events.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If we are becoming more sophisticated in our planning, is it going to be possible to reintroduce buses to the harbour? I see in the last report we had on the Sustainable Transport Policy that in 2009 we had something like 300,000 passengers moved from the harbour presumably into town. While I appreciate 100 per cent the difficulty in coordinating buses and boats arriving, is there any flexibility within the Liberty Bus system which will allow for a bus to arrive 10 minutes after a boat?

Director of Transport:

Not at present, the issue being that that was proposed as part of the town service. The town service is not funded. Now, the boats come in generally during peak traffic so the buses are fully utilised providing the scheduled service, so we do not have the capacity to run buses down to the terminal. It would be unlikely to cover its own costs so it would require a subsidy and at present we do not have those vehicles available, no.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So is it a vehicle problem or an operator problem or a money problem?

Director of Transport: It is a money problem.

Deputy J.H. Young: It is a money problem?

Director of Transport:

Yes. We have put forward bids in the past for the town service but it has never been considered a priority.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So to be clear, there is a dialogue that has happened with the operator and the operator said: "This will be a loss-making route and we want some money to pay for it"? Is that correct?

Director of Transport:

No, not at all, no. What is being called the town hopper service or the town service, the operator was tasked with coming out with proposals for that and were very happy to do that. However, those proposals are not funded. If we were to run a bus down the harbour, we would have to take a bus off the service to St. John or St. Brelade or wherever.

The Connétable of St. John : Oh, St. John ? [Laughter]

Director of Transport: Just for example.

Deputy J.H. Young:

I am struggling with this because I thought that the bus ridership is going up.

Director of Transport: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

The bus fares have gone up so there is more money coming from ...

Director of Transport:

Bus fares have stayed the same for 2 years and remain the same if you have a smartcard. So the smartcard penetration has been very successful. We have in the region of 6,000 smartcards out there at the moment. Revenue has increased, you are right, but that additional revenue is going back into the bus service.

Deputy J.H. Young:

But it is going into the regular services and not into these extras that people are asking for?

Director of Transport:

I think it is fair to say that, yes, there is not sufficient money to fund those kind of loss-making services, which effectively demand an extra vehicle at peak time. So you are looking at an extra peak vehicle ...

Chief Executive Officer:

What we have, we have a fundamentally different relationship with this contractor, one where we work collaboratively and we work in a way where we never worked with the previous one. That relationship allows us to really prioritise services. The key element is a scheduled service for the people of Jersey and we do not run a tourist service, which is what we used to do. We still have tourist provision with the routes in the summer. We try to expand them into the shoulder months, but the fundamental is to provide a community service which then tries to get more cars off the road. What we try and do is if there is any spare monies we try fundamentally to support other needs and needs which are higher priority; for example, some of the access for vulnerable users and people with disabilities.

Director of Transport:

With Liberty Bus we are bringing out some proposals but it is for them to launch and that will be happening shortly.

Deputy J.H. Young:

I think, Phil, you want to get in.

The Connétable of St. John :

Yes, something you said about the bus service for the people of Jersey. Can you tell me how many dead legs have you got or legs in the Island where people have to walk more than a mile to get to a bus stop? I am thinking of people who live down at Handois Reservoir. Their closest bus stop is either Carrefour Selous, St. John 's Church or the North Exchange. That is just one area. I know of other areas within my own Parish. We have all these dead areas and you made a comment or a statement there that the bus service is for the people of Jersey, not for the visitors. Can we have a service?

Chief Executive Officer:

Well, can I just say your service now is far better than it used to be?

The Connétable of St. John :

I am not disputing that, but there are still many areas which do not have it.

Chief Executive Officer:

But it is still not enough for you. Now, there is a cut-off line where there are people, I am sorry, who live in places which it is not cost effective or appropriate to run buses to those areas. Now, that is the tough love that you have to do because we cannot have a blanket service for everybody.

The Connétable of St. John :

So we cannot have running water for the water mains. We cannot have a bus.

Chief Executive Officer:

But those are the choices that people make, though, are they not?

The Connétable of St. John :

No, we put a bus service in to replace another bus service, which was going to improve the quality of life for the people of Jersey, not for the tourists. Therefore, can everybody who pays their taxes ... and all these people pay taxes, whether it is through G.S.T. (Goods and Services Tax) or whatever. They must be entitled to have a bus service, not have an 83 year-old woman having to walk with 2 shopping bags over a mile to a bus stop. It is totally unacceptable.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

It is work that is ongoing and what has happened in the bus service in the last year has been phenomenal and it is work that is ongoing.

The Connétable of St. John :

Yes, it is fine if you are on the south to west corridor. We see buses every quarter of an hour or 20 minutes and an abundance of them, and yet other parts of the Island do not have any at all.

Chief Executive Officer:

But is the responsibility not for the Parishes perhaps to have some form of community bus service which then could feed into the normal bus service?

The Connétable of St. John :

But you are trying to put the responsibility, C.E.O. (Chief Executive Officer) ...

Chief Executive Officer:

But there is a point where Government cannot ...

The Connétable of St. John : ... on the Parishes.

Chief Executive Officer:

No, I am saying it is a partnership and we should be working as a team, not criticising each other when we have put lots of money in and lots of effort.

Deputy J.H. Young: Let us take a pause.

Director of Transport:

Can I just interject, if that is okay? What I would say is that Liberty Bus does engage in an extensive consultation in advance of every timetable change. They try to judge where the public good is. Now, it is no secret that the bus services that run along the south coast, number 1 and number 15, are effectively the cash cow of the service who subsidise all of the other routes to areas that would never make any money out in the countryside. Because we are lucky enough to have a social enterprise which is not for profit, they recycle that money. So they go out to the Parish meetings and they ask parishioners what they want. Within the resource that is available with them, which is limited, they do their best to distribute that evenly and they are willing to try innovative things that have not been tried before. However, what you are saying about some locations where it is very unlikely to have a normal scheduled bus service because of the number of people, there are potentially other solutions. Now, Liberty Bus will be bringing forward some proposals later on this year about that, but I would not want to steal their thunder by making that announcement now.

The Connétable of St. John :

Can I stop you there? Four weeks ago 2 temporary bus stops were put in between St. John 's Church and Carrefour Selous. I have been requesting from the Minister and from the Chief Officer when these bus stops are going to be used. If they are not going to be used, remove the sign because I get the phone calls. I am the one who gets stopped in the street: "We have temporary bus stop signs gone up. Can I have some information?" I have been asking for the information and it has not come.

Director of Transport:

I received a request this morning regarding that and I have responded to it. Those temporary bus stops are to fill in a gap between bus stops for the school bus route so students do not have to walk too far, and they will be ...

The Connétable of St. John :

Children do not have to walk too far, yet 85 year-old women have to walk too far.

Director of Transport:

The school buses follow a fundamentally different type of network to the scheduled service where the school buses go round and try to get people as close as they can to their homes. The scheduled bus service is not designed like that and nor would it be efficient if it was.

Deputy J.H. Young:

I may be being radical but is there anything to stop a school bus picking up an 84 year-old lady if they are going to these temporary bus stops?

Chief Executive Officer:

If she wants to go to a school, yes.

[16:30]

Deputy J.H. Young:

Well, no, they go past buildings. They are going past other premises.

Director of Transport:

It is discussions that we have had in passing. It is a school bus. There are safeguarding issues. However, if you change it from being a school bus to being a scheduled bus service and you allow anyone to catch it, the trouble is it does go to schools. It does not go ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

Right, I accept the safeguarding issues.

Chief Executive Officer:

We have capacity issues on the bus as well.

Chief Executive Officer:

Obviously, a lot of discussions are involved. What is the structure you have for having those discussions where you make those priority decisions?

Chief Executive Officer:

I think Tristen had it right; it is what gives us the most public good. We are working with a contractor who is a social enterprise as their fundamental D.N.A., as it is within our organisation. So if the best social good is to provide a bus service for more vulnerable people in the community in the country Parishes, we will do that. If it is to provide for the social good better facilities for the ports, then that is ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

Okay. Who makes those decisions?

Chief Executive Officer: We will advise ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

Who is "we", sorry? Sorry, Minister, who is we? Who makes the priority decision?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is a partnership with the contractor and the Minister and ourselves.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Right. So you have a process where you meet and make those decisions?

Director of Transport:

Yes, there is a public consultation. We receive responses, then our officers work with Liberty Bus to agree between them what will provide most good, and then that is presented to the Minister.

Deputy J.H. Young:

You have had public consultation, you have had some ideas, and you are telling us there is going to be some new stuff coming out from the bus company?

Director of Transport:

Yes. Certainly, we are out to consultation. We have done the consultation in terms of the Parish Hall meetings, but we are now out to the more public consultation on the spring timetable where we are proposing to increase the bus service to certain tourist amenities early on in the season. Then as soon as that is finished we will start our consultation on the summer timetable where we are going to be doing our best to take out some of the quirkiness of the St. John service and also looking at increasing the frequencies elsewhere in the Island.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So the message should be: "Respond to the consultation. Do not just think: Oh, here we are, here is the summertime. It is all right'. Look at it and put your views forward." That is what you are saying?

Director of Transport: Yes.

The Connétable of St. John :

So you are telling us now different from the C.E.O. because he was saying the bus service is primarily for the people of Jersey, not the tourists. Now you are telling us you are putting the summer timetable in for the tourists.

Chief Executive Officer:

Just let us put this in perspective. The original J.M.T. (Jersey Motor Transport) service was for tourism and what we have tried to do is ... and even the Connex service was predominantly a tourist timetable. So you could not get a bus at 7.30 in the morning in Jersey into town. We have fundamentally changed that. Now, we completely support the tourist industry, but the previous J.M.T. and Connex was all about tourism and buses were not able to get people out to destinations. We still provide that function, but the main function is to support the transport strategy.

Director of Transport:

What we have done is establish a core community network. That core community network service level gets increased as the summer season comes on in order to make sure that the important amenities for tourism and the like are also serviced.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Steve, do you want to get in?

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I just have 2 questions. The first one is to do with smartcards. We are trying to become eGovernment and have a paperless society. Why do we still need to have a ticket printed out every time we swipe the card?

Director of Transport:

It has 2 aspects associated with it. The first one is to ensure that if anyone has a complaint they have the details of the journey available to them and that the bus company if that complaint is raised can get all the details of the driver, the route, the time and everything else from it. The other part of it is in order to ensure that we record the right passenger numbers so that people do not get in the habit of going past and not quite swiping on correctly because you would not have that record whether the money has been taken from the e-ticket or not.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

How do they cope in London without paper then?

Director of Transport:

That is tap on, tap off. It is a slightly different system.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Why is that not what we have?

Director of Transport:

That is more costly and more complex than is required for our network. I think what we have here is a good compromise.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Okay. The other question is: if we have these smartcards, when are we going to get to a situation where you put your card against the machine and the machine calculates how far you are away from the station so reduces your cost the closer you get to Liberation Station? Because if there is one thing that I think annoys people it is the fact that you pay X pound 50 if you are 4 miles away; you get 2 miles closer to town and you are still paying the same amount of money for half the journey. I think what I am trying to say is technology is moving on and we do not seem to be following as fast as we could be.

Director of Transport:

No. There are different views of this. Some people say that it should be a flat rate for anybody in the Island; it is only a small place. Other people, as you say, say there should be an escalating charge depending on how far you travel. The intention is to collect the data which the smart ticketing will allow us to collect and then do a review of the tariff structures. That will be ultimately for Liberty Bus to come forward with proposals to the Minister.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So the computers on board are calculating how many people get on at each stop and how far they are travelling?

Director of Transport: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So we have the information, we are just not using it to charge them?

Director of Transport:

We are starting to get it now. We have 3,000 student cards in circulation and 3,000 adult commuter type passes in circulation now.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So when will we expect the fare review? Obviously, that question came up in the States. I think, Minister, you gave a commitment there would be this review to deal with the point made by Deputy Luce . When can we expect that review to happen?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

As soon as we can extract the information obviously with Liberty Bus.

Deputy J.H. Young: When will that be?

Director of Transport:

I think it would probably be at the end of the summer season. We will start working towards the new year, something like that.

Deputy J.H. Young: So for 2015?

Director of Transport:

Probably, I would imagine. I cannot make that commitment for Liberty Bus but ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

There is a prospect that if Liberty Bus were to co-operate with that we could see a fare revision in 2015?

Director of Transport:

Ultimately, because of the way the contract is structured, where they take the commercial risk, it is for them to put forward the proposals which they think will best serve their customers and their business.

Deputy J.H. Young:

One final question: they did tell us as a not-for-profit organisation they had the opportunity to put money back into the service. Have they made any announcements on that yet?

Director of Transport:

That is what I am trying very hard not to ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

Well, we will not take their thunder but watch this space, is that your answer, Minister?

Director of Transport: Yes.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Now, I think we will move now to sewage treatment works. Phil is going to ...

The Connétable of St. John :

The sewage works, how is that progressing, the work going on down there?

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group:

In terms of the work at the moment on site, some site clearance operations are going on. You have heard about the E.f.W. demolition. The clinical waste incinerator project, we were hoping to get that tendered in May. This is for moving the clinical waste incinerator down to La Collette. That is due to be tendered in May and completed by the middle of next year, moved. The household recycling centre we have already spoken about; moving to La Collette I think the middle of next year?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It should be moved by the middle of next year, yes.

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group:

At the moment the other works we are looking at are doing are rationalisation of existing services down there because some of them need to move as part of the new building. The records are quite poor on our own site for services down at Bellozanne so we are pulling all that information together. So at the moment it is all preparation work.

The Connétable of St. John :

Right, okay. Expanding slightly, your sewage treatment, et cetera, your outlying pumping stations, I note again this year we have a 4-inch main on Rue du Bechet up to St. John 's main road yet again. Obviously we have the same problem with the hydraulic situation within the network. In fact, they have even been to my place checking drains, et cetera. Can you update on that, please?

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group:

Yes, that is a major piece of work for us at the moment with infiltration. This is surface water getting on to the foul drainage network. Basically, every time it rains we get pumping stations that are overloaded and cannot cope and so we have tankers on them, or in the case of the pumping station you are talking about we have to lay an additional pumping main. Now, with the wet weather we have had this winter perversely it has given us an ideal opportunity to get survey teams out there and identify where a lot of this water is coming from. We have done quite a bit of work on our own network in terms of the public side of the roads and the fields, but we have also taken this opportunity as well to investigate some of the private properties, quite a lot of private properties actually, and we are finding that that is where a lot of the water is coming from. So we are starting to address those issues as well now in terms of looking to get these private residences to get their own drainage systems sorted out. A lot of them have surface water connections on the foul.

The Connétable of St. John :

Right, okay. Your pumping stations down at the bottom end at Bellozanne, are they coping all right with everything you are pushing down there considering that ...

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group: The one at First Tower?

The Connétable of St. John : First Tower, sorry.

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group:

Yes, it pumps at maximum capacity and anything they cannot cope with spills to ...

The Connétable of St. John : Oh, right. Okay, fine.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Minister, where are we with timescales and dates for debates on the new liquid waste plant?

Chief Executive Officer: We lodge tomorrow.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

That gives us a debate in 6 weeks' time.

Chief Executive Officer:

In theory, yes. We are aiming at 28th April but it is subject to your review.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

You will allow us enough time for proper scrutiny, will you not?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is completely within your rights, is it not? It is your right to pull in anything you like.

Deputy J.H. Young:

So you have lodged the proposition to seek States approval to your liquid waste strategy?

Chief Executive Officer:

That will be lodged tomorrow, yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Timescale, when are you aiming, if all goes to your plan, to start work?

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group: Actual construction work will ...

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It is ongoing, is it not? This is part of the work we are doing at the moment.

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group: Yes, there is preliminary work.

Chief Executive Officer:

The sludge base, too, is sort of a precursor to it, the work that Steve has talked about, the £10 million we have this year of clinical waste and some of the site-clearing activities. With States approval, 2015 is predominantly the site services, the other elements of the work, and then 2016 is the major contract, is where we are planning hopefully with a 2-year build time. So it is on quick order, really. It does not sound it, but the time burns very quickly. We have spent a lot of time on the design and the optimisation of the design.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

All things being equal, we are looking at 2018 then, are we?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group: Probably 2019 by the time it is commissioned.

The Deputy of St. Martin : So it is still 5 years away?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Just remind us what your population assumption is for that project?

Assistant Director Drainage Infrastructure Group:

At the moment, the population design is working on connected population, which includes tourism visitors, of 118,000 for 2035. But clearly obviously that is still up for debate. Any changes in policy will be taken account of when we do the final design.

Deputy J.H. Young: Okay.

Chief Executive Officer:

One of the big benefits of the new layout and one of the things we have insisted on is it is future proof in terms of it can grow bigger or even smaller depending on the population of the Island because that is the main driver for the sewage treatment works.

Deputy J.H. Young:

What is the estimated lifetime of the plant?

Chief Executive Officer:

Well, the previous one has lasted 50-odd years.

Deputy J.H. Young: Well, design life then.

Chief Executive Officer:

It is a really difficult one. The mechanical and electrical equipment has a 25-year life on it at maximum, sometimes 15 years. Inlet screens, for example, you are looking to get 15 years out of them because it is a very high intensity area and very high wear. The primary tanks and the civil structures will last 50, 100 years even, if ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

But the old one lasted 50 years?

Chief Executive Officer:

That is right, yes, and the old ...

Deputy J.H. Young: You kept it going?

Chief Executive Officer:

The old structures are in good nick, they are just in the wrong place with the wrong hydraulic gradient.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I just have an associated subject. We mentioned again moving the household recycling down to La Collette in order to start this work, which is fine. But back to La Collette again, Minister, do we have any plans to relocate all the rest of our bad neighbours to La Collette? It seems like a fantastic opportunity to put a lot of our waste recycling, all those similar industries, together. Of course, I am thinking specifically of skips. We are going to have the scrapyard there, household recycling, we are going to have green waste; everything is going to go to La Collette where it is easily managed close by and what have you. Surely that is the obvious place for skips?

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services:

We do not really have the capacity to have all the skip companies down there.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

If I could just answer part of that, currently our immediate plans for relocating the activities we have spoken about only just about fit on the operational areas of land we have with it. So we are aiming to have the sites ready, which requires continual filling, by the end of this year. We will then start construction and we have no other areas of land until we fill more. So we are right on top of ourselves there. As we continue to fill, which I mentioned earlier is now at a slower rate because of our increased recycling, we will increase other operational areas or increase other areas of land which could be used for operational uses. Skips or moving other recycling activities there is a possibility, but they are all predicated by the limits on planning.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Given what you are saying, super-fill is something we need to try and avoid at all costs then?

[16:45]

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It is a balance point. If you want to move more activities down there, then you do not really want to super-fill.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Well, on the basis that there is a hazardous problem with the fuel farm, we cannot have large numbers of the general public down there, it would seem like it is going to be an industrial centre, which would make a lot of sense. If you are going to try and move all your nastier, smellier, noisier light industry down there, which would appear to make sense, the last thing you want to be doing is saying: "We cannot put it there because we are going to super-fill that site and cover it in grass."

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The super-filling over and above what we are doing in and around the ash cells will not start for at least 10 years. We are predicting 10 to 15 years of filling just up to the platform level, filling in what is within the original reclamation site.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

But that is if you find it acceptable to go up as high as we are at the moment. To some people that is not really what we should be doing either.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

The 10 to 15 years is to fill up to the top of the rock armour at the moment, just to fill to what we call the platform level.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

But how much of that would be bottom ash?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Very little of it because the ash has to be above the high water level, at least a couple of metres above that, so the ash cells are always above the platform level.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

All the super-fill is basically ash, is it not, really?

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

Currently it is, yes, in broad terms. Now, if we go for exporting ash, we have the option of either super-filling or not super-filling. If we decide not to super-fill because we want to use the site for something else or for visual reasons, then we will need to find somewhere else in the future for the inert waste to go.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Given what you are saying, it sounds like there is an awful lot of pressure on the flat areas before we start super-filling because we have all these things we want to put on, cover in concrete and put on, and then we have an additional problem with it being the super-fill: where do we put that, so almost to the point where we need to fill up the site quicker than we are presently.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

It is the discussions we have on sites to fill or not to fill because at the same time our solid waste strategy is to recycle.

Deputy J.H. Young:

It was ever thus, I think. If I can just check because I want to clarify, I think I heard you say that there is nowhere in your plans for the skip recycling operators.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: Correct.

Deputy J.H. Young:

Yet I thought earlier you had said that you want to have sorting of material because that assists your operation. It seems to me the 2 positions are entirely ...

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: That is for people to bring in but not to host various ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

Right, so the strategy is that you want to see ... or at least it will not do anything, Minister, about shifting skip operators from sites all over the Island to La Collette?

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I just cannot see how it does not make sense to have that type of noisy industrial operation done at La Collette and save the rest of the Island the problem.

Chief Executive Officer:

Perhaps the Island Plan should have some light industrial and bad neighbour areas put into it.

The Deputy of St. Martin : It has: La Collette.

Deputy J.H. Young:

La Collette, as we understand it, is a place where  you cannot have an intensity of human occupation. You have to apply all the national rules about planning uses and it is only uses that do not score badly under that that can go there.

Director of Engineering and Infrastructure:

I think in summary the current area of land which is filled is required for Government use and for all the areas of activity we have spoken about. As the site continues to fill over the next number of years, there is the ability to decide what would be the best use of that land. Now, as long as the uses of land fall within land use planning guidelines, then that is a possibility. But at this stage there are not any spare areas of land.

Deputy J.H. Young:

We will be coming back to that.

The Connétable of St. John :

We had an excellent green waste plant at St. Mary for many years and that was brought into St. Helier . I still do not understand why a green waste plant could not have stayed out in the country where you have country smells from green waste. To me it seems ludicrous that that was brought to St. Helier and occupies such a large area.

An excellent point. Perhaps the residents of St. Mary could comment. [Laughter]

Deputy J.H. Young:

Well, I think John has one point to clear up before we close.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

We thought that that site should have moved to St. John . [Laughter]

Deputy J.H. Young:

Well, let us not go there. You have an extra question before we close the meeting.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

A point of clarification, please. You mentioned 30,000 tonnes of incinerator waste. Now, was that commercial burnable from site clearances or did it include the tonnage of household waste collected by refuse trucks?

Chief Executive Officer:

No, that is just non-household burnable waste.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

Right, so that does not include ...

The Deputy of St. Martin :

The household takes it up to 80 something?

Chief Executive Officer:

Yes, the household takes it up to 75,000, 78,000 tonnes.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

So, in that case, you are approaching 40,000 tonnes of household refuse?

Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Mary :

I just wanted the clarification on that because clearly that should be a charge-out on the 30,000 tonnes.

Deputy J.H. Young: Steve, any other points?

The Deputy of St. Martin :

No, I am going to consider my next question over the next couple of months. I am interested in the concept of if it is a Government problem it can go to La Collette; if it is not, it cannot. I am just trying to get my head round how it could quite easily become a problem if somebody said: "I will not get a skip company in to remove this, I will give it to the recycling centre at the Parish or I will find another way of getting it to La Collette." Assuming that it is not a Government problem because it is in a skip I think is wrong.

Chief Executive Officer:

No, I do not disagree with the principle. What I think I should flag up is we are not the department which defines what people do on sites. What we have developed is a masterplan for predominantly our solid waste activities going to La Collette and what Chris has quite rightly pointed out for the land available, in fact, we are struggling to squeeze in what we want to do there. That enables us to focus on liquid waste at Bellozanne. That will free up space, but that space is not for us to reallocate. That is a space which the Planning Department and Property Holdings perhaps could reallocate for commercial use. So, it is not in our gift to say ...

Deputy J.H. Young:

It is not joined-up Government then?

Chief Executive Officer:

It is not in our gift as Transport and Technical Services to say: "You can do this on that land." If that land is appropriate and it has been defined in the Island Plan and Property Holdings are willing to lease it out, it is a great utilisation of that land. What we are saying as Transport and Technical Services is we need the existing land for our operation so it is more coherent and it is a better solution for the land.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If you were really awkward, you could make the case for the scrapyard in exactly the same way as you could for the skip industry on the Island.

Deputy J.H. Young:

We will be coming back to this I am sure. It sounds as if we will have to raise these questions with Property Holdings ...

We will never be awkward.

Deputy J.H. Young:

... and the Minister for Planning and Environment. I think at that point I am now going to close the meeting. Thank you very much for coming. We have overrun, I apologise for that, but I think there was some important material that justified us doing that. So, thank you for that, Minister.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services: Thank you, Chairman.

[16:52]