WORKING ON A SOLUTION

The Ministry of Health is aware of the sewage problem in the Worthing and Hastings area and assures that they, along with other entities, are working hard but efficiently to solve the problem.

So says Minister of Health, John Boyce, during a press conference that was held at his ministry yesterday morning.

“As the Minister of Health, I just want to assure the public, and especially constituents and the business people, of our continued surveillance of the area and our continued management of the health-related issues by way of the deployment of additional environmental health officers,” he said.

“Some ten officers have been added to the two catchments. Randall Phillips and Winston Scott will be responsible for the two areas and they are out there working with business people and restaurants to ensure that effective health practices are in place and are reinforced.”

The Minister revealed that there is a committee, headed by the Chief Medical Officer, and made up of the Barbados Tourism Authority and the Barbados Water Authority representatives at the highest level, the Barbados Police Force, the regiment of Barbados, the Environmental Protection Department and the Coastal Zone Unit. He added that the committee meets weekly to monitor the issues and decide on necessary courses of action.

He expressed that this has been an extremely challenging exercise in terms of locating the area causing the problem, and then of course, putting the necessary solutions in place to bring about some relief and correct the situation.

“This is really a three-stage process; the first stage is of course to identify the affected areas causing the manholes at certain points to behave the way they have been. We believe that the Water Authority has found the area and we are trying to zero in the exact location,” he said.

“These pipes are 15 feet under the ground, so we have to use specialised equipment and expertise to find these areas. The second stage or part of the first stage, then, is that we need to put in place a temporary over ground pipework, but again that is to be carefully located so as not to impact the general public or business.”

As a result, Boyce explained that the BWA is working on clearing the areas so that they could insert large pipes and large pumps that need to be put in place to take the effluent away so that repair work can begin.

The Minister noted that this will be a very long process but assures that they are working as quickly as possible to fix the problem.