As a new administration takes over in Haiti, let us hope that the first thing that Michel Martelly does is to address the catastrophic lack of clean drinking water in Haiti, which lack will continue you to drive poverty, sickness and particularly cholera.

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Inside the Truttier Waste Dump, where animals and humans forage for their needs in highly toxic conditions. (photo by Mac McKinney)

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We were on the way to Truttier at the end of Part 5 of this series, before I had to digress over to the Iron Market, but allow me to again pick up the thread:

Congratulations from other Caribbean presidents and officials, as well as elsewhere, are flowing into the offices of the new President-elect of Haiti, Michel (Sweet Micky) Martelly, famous (some would say infamous, but they may be squares) Compas musician and businessman, after he handily won the second round runoff against Mirlande Manigat, the results first being announced on April 4. However, few of these same officials would want to take on the incredibly challenging job that Martelly has assigned himself to do, which is to rebuild Haiti.

Everything, practically, is screwed up, with hundreds of thousands of thousands of Haitians still living in tents, displaced by the 2010 earthquake. Add to that a cholera epidemic that didn't abate until this winter, and which threatens to renew itself this spring and summer as the rainy season brings annual rising waters that can spread cholera bacteria lying hidden in both soil and plant-life right back into many of the sources of drinking, bathing and washing water in Haiti.

Then there is the wrecked economy, the culture of corruption, the foreign exploitation, the dysfunctional relationship between NGOs and both the Haitian government and people, not to mention the quasi-permanent presence of MINUSTAH, the UN peace-keeping force that has become a "piece" of the problem, and on and on. To put it mildly, Sweety Micky has his work cut out for him.

But in my humble opinion, nothing is more important than providing the Haitian people with that most basic requirement for staying alive, clean drinking water, and perhaps that is why Georgianne Nienaber and I ended up bouncing around the backroads of La Saline and Cite Soleil on February 5th, to convey this message.

We were on our way to investigate one of the least desirable locales in Haiti, the Truttier Waste Disposal Dump near the giant slum of Cite Soleil and, worse still, located atop the Plaine Cul-de-Sac Aquifer, yes unfortunately, the same aquifer that provides fresh water for the capital, Port-au-Prince, home to hundreds of thousands of people without counting its suburbs.

What makes things particularly bad is that raw sewage from cholera treatment camps is being brought here in sewage tanker trucks, which gingerly back up to the edge of a giant, putrid and open-air holding pond (more like a little lake) in the middle of the spacious dump, while truck drivers leap out, walk to the rear end and open wide the large discharge valve that unleashes the toxic sewage into the unlined pond. The sewage can, from that point on, potentially leach into the aquifer underneath, threatening the capital's water supply, as well as flow underground into the Bay of Port-au-Prince, polluting the ocean and marine life.

The dump is also host to, besides the ordinary debris, a medical waste dumping area, which we wondered through photographing, noting discarded needles and syringes, bags full of vomit and excrement from the cholera treatment centers, and other gross refuse.

It is not that we were the first journalists to discover this, only the latest to document it and point out the snail's pace of enforcing the minimal regulations to protect the living. For instance, there are, actually, bulldozers and earth-diggers excavating the site of a new holding pool that WILL be lined, and I took some distance shots of them at work, as you will see.

Georgianne even produced her own video to highlight the situation:



Touring the Truttier Waste Dump:

We have stopped on the edge of Truttier as a JEDCO Sewage Waste disposal truck passes by, kicking up dust from the dirt roads everywhere.


Shanty towns and jerry-rigged tents lurk in the shadows, often half-hidden by garbage and debris, but they run all the way up to the edge of the waste dump.


Heavy machinery used in the dump sits in the background, temporarily parked, while a goat meanders by in the foreground.


In fact goats, which will eat practically anything, are all over the dump and its outskirts. Wooden protective "A-Frames" have been secured to their necks to keep them from sticking their necks and bodies through fences and such.


Closeup of some goats with A-Frame collars.


Meanwhile, impoverished men are scavenging for anything worth using or selling on the blackmarket. They often have no protective gear other than what they can procure in a dump riddled with toxins and often inundated with foul air.


Closeup of scavengers


This is the medical waste dump area of the site.


Georgianne takes a shot to my left as both of us take photos of this medical wasteland, with syringes, needles and vomit bags strewn all over the place.


Meanwhile, behind me, beyond the medical site, a Caterpillar backhoe is burying garbage.


Closeup of the Caterpillar


In the far distance of the dump, you can see smoke from mounds of burning refuse wafting into the air, while smoke fans out with the winds.


Bulldozers and workers barely discernible in the clouds of smoke


Now we are trying to get past a guard shack to investigate the sewage holding pool or "pond". The worker in the orange safety vest tries giving us a hard time, but we had already had a tortured telephone conversation with the powers-that-be to finally procure passage anywhere in the dump.


Up ahead, sewage disposal trucks are discharging their toxic loads.


Embarrassingly, this includes the Haitian Red-Cross,


and a joint Red-Cross/Red-Crescent truck, and others, such as JEDCO, embarrassing because these life-saving NGOs and even the businesses know that their sewage may very well pollute populated areas down the line. But they will tell you that there is nowhere else they can dump their toxic cargoes in the area, and they may be right. But what are THEY doing to resolve this problem?


Closeup of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Truck


Georgianne, with Andre right behind her, takes some investigative shots as truck-drivers look on.


Raw sewage gushing out into the holding pond.


A portion of the pond, as heavy equipment digs the future holding pool in the far background.


Four trucks in a row discharging their toxic contents, some of the sewage atomizing and drifting down on everybody


Zooming in on the far end of the pond


More of a landscape view of the pond, or should I say swamp?


Meanwhile a dump truck full of excavated mud is rounding the bend,


and disappearing in a haze of dust.


We have driven to another part of the dump now as I zoom in on a couple of scavengers working in the smoke.


A cow is scavenging amidst the smoke and debris.


An ill-protected individual in shorts, maybe a kid, wonders through this scene out of Dante's Inferno.


Speaking of the devil, three goats scavenging


A bulldozer in the haze


A shanty town on the very edge of the dump as a man in silhouette walks past a mound of plastic


Closeup of shanties


Another shack


Men and children working and living amid the rubble


We watch scavengers leaving the facility with their bags filled, or half-filled, with what they hope they can sell or barter with. We weren't far behind at this point, heading back for fresher air and a cleaner environment ourselves.

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About this series:

On February 4th independent journalist Georgianne Nienaber and I flew into Haiti for a five day whirlwind investigative tour facilitated by our driver and "fixer", Andre Paultre, a journalist's best friend in Haiti. This is the eigth piece in my series, "Haitian Winter".

For Part One of this series, CLICK HERE
For Part Two of this series, CLICK HERE
For Part Three of this series, CLICK HERE
For Part Four of this series, CLICK HERE
For Part Five of this series, CLICK HERE
For Part Six of this series, CLICK HERE
For Part Seven of this series, CLICK HERE

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Authors Bio:
I am a student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and a tempered advocate for the ultimate manifestation of peace, justice and the unity of humankind through self-realization and mutual respect, although I am not a pacifist, nor do I believe in peace at any price, which is no peace at all but only delays inevitable conflict. There are times when the world must act. Planetary consciousness is evolving, but there are many retrograde forces that would drag us back down.

I have also written one book, a combination of poetry, photography and essays entitled "Post Katrina Blues", my reflections on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans two years after Katrina struck. Go to the store at http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/ to purchase. And I also have a blog called Plutonian Mac.