Blocked sewers

This is beyond a simple crisis!

Powerful words from General Manager of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA), Keithroy Halliday, as he painted the harsh reality facing the South Coast Sewerage Treatment Plant and the round-the-clock measures being undertaken by the BWA and other officials to get the situation under control.

One such measure was the installation of brand new pumps, which was successfully carried out last week by a team of Trinidadian consultants. However, as Halliday and Head of the Wastewater Division Patricia Inniss pointed out, things started to go downhill after just one day of operation.

That’s because the pumps were severely blocked by rags and other “extraneous debris” which caused the $130 000 piece of machinery to stop working and have also compromised other pumps. To this end, the largest pump (ten inch) is currently not in use after clumps of towels and other materials choked the equipment and have even made their way into the impeller.

The team from Trinidad is expected back into the island in short order to seek to address the problem.

Inniss recounted that while teams were expecting a quiet Christmas and relief for residents and businesses, this was not to be as BWA workers were on duty over the entire Christmas holiday seeking to keep the pumps clear.

Halliday explained that this by-pass system was just one step in the chain of steps to address the problems plaguing the plant.

“If we can get this by-pass to continue to work we still have to deal with the blockage. Once we can deal with the blockage we can deal with the repair…this is on the sanitary line. Once we have dealt with that, we then have to look at the effluent line because there is a breach there and that in itself is going to be tricky,” he explained.

“This is beyond the simple crisis, this is a serious issue. This is a national issue. We need the cooperation of everyone. We need the support of everyone, we need to push forward as aggressively as we can over the next several weeks to bring some closure to the issues that we have.

“There are a number of steps that we can take, but we can’t afford to put all of our resources into one or two steps and still have to be fighting with others who are aligned with us or who are not in sync with us who are disposing of illicit material. We have to repair our effluent line which has burst and which is recycling the water. That is the genesis of the problem that Barbados now faces,” he said.

He noted that the screw lifts are designed to manage some of the rags into the plant but are failing, since according to him the plant needs to be overhauled. To this end, additional pumps have to be employed to manage the flows. It is these pumps that cannot handle the heavy volume of debris.

Inniss said that the magnitude of the problem was identified on November 14. She said while a timeline was set and followed, every time one corner was passed, a bigger problem emerged.

She also lamented the fact that crews are now tasked with de-ragging all the debris from the pumps every few hours, which is hampering the level of progress.

“The significance of this has been that while we have installed three new pumps, our largest pump has been so compromised that it is no longer working.

“We are appealing seriously to all – not only residents, but larger commercial houses, hotels, large guest houses – we are not going to identify anyone specifically at this point because we don’t know exactly who are the main contributors.

“If we are going to deal with this, and it is a national crisis we need all the businesses, all of the residents to come on board.”

The BWA noted that they are working closely with businesses in the area and is there to answer any questions or to offer assistance.

“If it is you are unsure of what you need to do, contact us, let us show you, let us help you, and let us show what you need to do to rebuild your systems.

“Barbadians now have to realise that a paradigm shift needs to occur. You cannot put anything in the sewer lines which does not belong. We cannot continue with blocks, breaches in the force main and then extraneous matter in the sewer line. Every tourist, business person, householder, has to realise you are going to play a part in whether we succeed or we fail and that is across the board,” Inniss said.

Some of the measures implemented to mitigate the challenges include the use of flushing crews, private septic haulers to ensure levels are contained.

The Ministry of Health and Environmental Protection Department are also closely monitoring the situation. (JH)