THE NATIONAL Water Commission (NWC) has warned it will no longer take over the maintenance of sewerage systems which are "inappropriate, inadequate or otherwise defective".Following recent criticisms levelled at the Commission by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) in its 2002/03 annual report, the NWC reacted strongly to allegations of negligence of sewerage systems they say were not designed by them.
"Developers are therefore put on notice that any sewage treatment facility they construct must be appropriate or the NWC will not take over its maintenance and operation," said the NWC in a release last week.
Reacting to a report carried in The Sunday Gleaner last week, the NWC noted: "Regarding media articles, the NWC has been berated for 'inadequate management of its sewerage portfolio' without acknowledging the positive performances of the Commission in locations where the evidence speaks for itself.
We are sure that the citizens of Montego Bay, Negril, Ocho Rios and Greater Portmore in particular, are gratified at the contribution made by the Commission in the improvement of their community," said the Commission. It added that more than $3 billion was spent recently on sewerage systems in these areas, representing the single largest sum of money ever spent at any one time on sewerage infrastructure in Jamaica's history.
RESPONSIBILITY
Central sewerage facilities are located in Kingston and St. Andrew, South-east St. Catherine (Portmore), Montego Bay in St. James, Ocho Rios in St. Ann, and Negril in Westmoreland. In addition, the NWC has assumed responsibility for several small sewerage systems, which are associated with housing developments in various parts of the country.
Packaged sewerage treatment plants are used to provide treatment of the sewage collected in these small systems. The NWC has recently completed comprehensive sewerage systems for Ocho Rios (St. Ann) and Negril (Westmoreland) to meet the increasing need for sewerage services in these areas. Similarly, the Montego Bay system in St. James has been upgraded and expanded to meet the long-term requirements for sewerage in the second city.
Of all the 50 sewage treatment facilities, only Greenwich (built in the 1960s), Western (built in the 1930s) and the recently completed systems in Ocho Rios, Negril and Montego Bay were actually built by the NWC or its forerunner organisations. All the other facilities were built by various housing developers and subsequently handed over to the National Water Commission for operation and maintenance.
The report said that the long-term solution to address sewerage-related problems in Kingston and St. Andrew and sections of Portmore is the implementation of the Soapberry Sewerage Project for which preliminary designs have been prepared.
PROBLEMS
"To address the immediate problems will require the implementation of a phase of this project. This will involve the construction of facultative ponds on some 100 hectares of land at Soapberry, the installation of over 10 km of trunk sewers and the construction of three major pumping stations. The total cost for this undertaking is estimated at just under $4 billion.
"For Harbour View, it will be necessary to construct a new sewage treatment plant at a cost of some $300M. NWC has in- house designs for such a plant and, assuming that NWC is granted the tariff applied for, construction will take place," said the release.
