BWA doing its best to prevent sewage leaks

THE Barbados Water Authority (BWA) has done “all that is humanly possible” to avert the possibility of another sewage leak on the South Coast of this island.

However, Manager of the BWA’s Wastewater Division, Patricia Inniss, warned that in the case of unusually high amounts of rainfall, “there was only that much human beings can do”.

“If we have a case where there is not enough drainage of the sluice gate where there is excessive build up of water, which has been the problem, if the gates are not opened and there is not sufficient drainage and then we watch a rising of the levels over hours, that rising eventually will get into the sewage networks, even though we have cleared all the passages,” she told the media, during a conference at the BWA’s headquarters yesterday.

At the end of last year, South Coast businesses and residents were faced with overflows of effluence onto the streets as excessive rainfall damaged a pump and flowed into the collection system.

This pump has since then been fixed and with the regular cleaning of the outfalls and the Drainage Unit opening the sluice gates to reduce any rising levels of water in the swamp periodically, Inniss insisted that what could be done was being done to prevent a repeat of this occurrence and disclosed that a town hall meeting will soon be scheduled for residents.

She further said that in a move to address infiltration problems within the sewer networks, CCTV operators were currently being sent down to look at major areas where there were cracks, so these could be fixed.

“Even as we attempt to block perfectly our sewer network which is a closed and sanitary network, once there are excessive amounts of water on the surface, overtime it will get in the network and overtime the sewer system will act as a drainage system, and then there is the possibility of an overflow. What we have found is that in January this year, where in half an hour we had an overflow in the network, what we are seeing now in four and five hours of rain, our networks are still holding,” she said.

Inniss pointed out simply that as long as the networks became a drainage system and not a sewer system, overflows would be possible.

She therefore pointed out that drainage issues were being worked at in Graeme Hall, Peronne Village and in Bridgetown, noting that members of the public were creating additional headaches for her department and that of the Drainage Unit through indiscriminately dumping materials that blocked the outfall system.

“We have had mops, debris, pampers, needles, ... every considerable item in the sewer network that you can imagine,” she said.

Quick to say she was not assigning blame to anyone, Inniss nevertheless stressed that all Barbadians have the responsibility of maintaining the sewer system. (JMB)