Phase one of refurbishments to the Tynes Bay waste incinerator is now complete.And Government said that waste that was stockpiled at Morgan’s Point while the work was being done, is to be removed by mid-August.According to the Ministry of Public Works, half of the 7,000-bale backlog that piled up during refurbishments has been dealt with.A spokesman said: “The refurbishment work on the Tynes Bay stream two was completed in March 2011, and after a month of performance testing, the newly re-tooled unit was handed over to Government on April 4, 2011.”One Bermuda Alliance Senator Katherine Michelmore raised the issue in the Senate last week.She tabled a series of parliamentary questions, after Junior Minister for Public works Cromwell Shakir said Government had put $25 million into refurbishing Tynes Bay.The OBA senator asked:l when the capacity-boosting third stream would come into effect.l how much waste remained at Morgan’s Point.l the cost of diverting waste to Morgan’s Point since the programme started in 2010.She said: “My main concern is, how we could have allowed things to get to the point where we can’t process waste? It should have been addressed and budgeted for earlier.”Having to store excess waste at Morgans Point “shows mismanagement”, she said.“This issue didn’t sneak up on us. If you look back at the history of Tynes Bay, it has been known for a long time that it did not have enough capacity, and now we’ve reached a point where that capacity can no longer do it. We should have anticipated this, rather than spending extra to truck waste to Morgan’s Point.”Ms Michelmore said that when Tynes Bay was built in 1994, its capacity was already soon to be outstripped by Bermuda’s increasing waste production.“For our size, we are one of the biggest waste-producing countries in the western world. It was apparent by 1998 that it wasn’t going to cope, and that Bermuda needed to do more about mandatory recycling to reduce waste.“I’m not a spokesperson on Works and Engineering, but have spoken out a great deal on matters to do with the environment, and I feel we have not done enough for waste management. We can build the third stream at Tynes Bay, but unless we address this, we will have the same problem again in another ten years.”A third stream at Tynes Bay would allow extra burning capacity and could result in the building of a second smokestack, she said.Ms Michelmore said she had posted an article online in September questioning the incineration plant’s lack of capacity.She said there was “no formal response or comeback to my questions”.“How have we gotten to this point and how much has it cost us?”Useful website: www.onebermudaalliance.bm.