No need for new Sewerage Plant, says Payne

There is no need for another Sewerage Treatment Plant in this island.

So says Member of Parliament for St. Andrew George Payne, in disagreeing with the stance of Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resource Management Dr. David Estwick.

Estwick last year revealed that the current plant could no longer adequately service the island’s south coast and therefore said that the long term solution was to build another facility.

“You do not need a new sewage plant. The problems are connected to the collection systems and the leaks in the connection systems are what have been causing the problem, but because of the fact that we have been unable to get the current personnel, the fact that the engineers within the Barbados Water Authority – you could imagine… the former engineer who was responsible for sewage and waste water, the most experienced person in the Caribbean in this area is not being utilised at all,” he contended.

In his submission to the Appropriations Bill 2018 in the Lower House on Thursday evening, Payne said that an inspection of the entire system was necessary.

“An inspection involves CCTV inspection and that facility is not available,” he claimed.

“Having done that inspection, you would have to prioritise the type of problems that are being assessed and that that inspection would have shown up and thereafter a costing would have to be done and obviously we would have to have a time schedule of those problems, but central to the problems of the Water Authority is the fact that you have a sewage plant and persons managing it that are not engineers,” Payne added. (JMB)