BWA GM: Plant needs to be overhauled, replaced

GENERAL Manager of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA), Keithroy Halliday, says the reality facing the South Coast Sewage Treatment Plant is that it is showing signs that it needs to be overhauled or replaced.

Halliday highlighted the challenges to the media yesterday morning and the steps being taken to address the sewage spilling onto sections of the south coast. This includes efforts to get the by-pass to function in order to bring levels down so that the blockages identified can be fixed. However, the bigger picture Halliday says, is the plant itself.

According to Halliday, “It is clear that this plant must be replaced. It is clear that it must be upgraded. It is clear that we must go from a primary level plant to a tertiary level plant.”

“Our Force main line is significantly compromised. It seems to be crumbling. What this means is that the effluent that is going out to the sea a mile and a half out to the various diffusers it is not working the way it should. We are having recirculation of some of the effluent coming back into effluent line and overwhelming or overloading our plant.”

“And what is contributing significantly to that is the amount of rags, the amount of debris that is in our plant. Added to that we still have a copious amount of storm water that is coming into and any and everything that people are disposing of into the sewage,” he lamented.

Halliday, who noted that this has the potential to be a national crisis if not fully addressed, pleaded with householders and businesses in the catchment to understand their respective roles.

“There needs to be a higher level of national conscientiousness by all of the individuals who are on our network to understand that you cannot just dispose of anything into the sewer with the thinking or behaviour that once it is not at you all is well and good. It has to stop,” he asserted.

The general manager said some tough decisions may have to be taken in order to ensure that this problem is rectified. “We may be forced at this time to start looking at who or what we need to disconnect if we are going to protect the larger interest of the national community.

“We would rather not go that route, whether it is legislated or whether we are forced under our Act to take steps or measures to do what is necessary, but we need everyone to start exercising a heightened degree of sensitivity, we need everyone to educate their household to work with them. I can only plead enough at this stage because as we start to make one step forward we feel like we are sliding two steps backward,” he further pointed out.

Halliday explained that if the effluent line cannot be repaired there will be a need for another Force main. “This is a significant project that will have to be undertaken, where we will have to create another outlet whether it is parallel to the existing one or otherwise that basically takes the effluent when treated right out to the sea. What we are seeing now is really not just an issue of maintenance, not an issue of management, not just a misuse of time. It is an issue of national neglect. We are all solid contributors to this,” he lamented.

“With respect to what we need to do as an organisation in terms of the BWA, in terms of the national community who may not have been sufficiently educated or sensitised to the fact that only certain types of material can go into our sewage line and in terms of the certain level of behaviour that ‘once it is not at me it is all fine and dandy’, but we have to wake up. If you have not yet recognised that what has happened on the south coast is of massive proportion you need to start looking at it now,” he said.
(JH)

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