The plan to turn the former Pembroke Dump into a public park is not dead yet, according to the Ministry of Works and Engineering.

Permanent Secretary Dr. Derrick Binns said: “The long term plans for the Pembroke Site remain essentially the same as they were developed 20 years ago.

The Pembroke Marsh Development Plan is a long-standing capital project that is being implemented in phases.”

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the original promise to transform the former landfill into parklands.

The pledge was made in 1987 by a United Bermuda Party Government, but never implemented.

These new comments from the Ministry of Works and Engineering suggest the current Government is prepared to carry out the UBP promise.

But after nine years at the helm for the Progressive Labour Party, the Marsh Folly Horticultural Waste Site today looks starkly different from the artist renderings presented in 1987.

Dr. Binns indicated that the transformation will take time.

He said: “The Marsh Folly site is currently being used as the only location in Bermuda that receives and processes horticultural waste and other organic materials. Until a new location can be found to deal with this material most of the site remains unavailable for end use.”

He added: “Alternatives for the current operation are being investigated.”

A new method for processing horticultural waste in Bermuda may be the only road toward a public park, but finding an alternative site large enough in a country with lessening open spaces would be an enormous challenge. Former Works and Engineering Minister Ashfield DeVent told The Royal Gazette yesterday that 100 tonnes of green material arrives at the Marsh Folly site every day.

In the meantime, Dr. Binns points to an array of recent improvements around the site which include the Pembroke Playground, the Parsons Road Basketball Count and the alleviation of flooding in the area.

It’s worth noting, as the Ministry does in this new statement to the Gazette, that years of garbage dumping and trash burning at the site make it less than ideal for recreational use. The original researchers from Harvard University said in 1987 that the problem could be overcome with proper grading adjustments. Dr. Binns made the same point this week.

He added: “Landfill related impacts affecting end use of the site normally diminish with time. Hence from a technical and environmental aspect the end use plan is not adversely impacted if completed in a phased approached over a considerable period of time.”

These comments from the Ministry of Works and Engineering coupled with statements from the Shadow Minister of the Environment Cole Simons yesterday reveal that both political parties publicly proclaim that the parklands promise is still alive — even after 20 years.

But Marsh Folly residents who neighbour the waste site have already voiced scepticism in any new political promises concerning the former landfill.