Raphael John-Lall

raphael.lall@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, al­so MP for Lopinot /Bon Air West is promis­ing res­i­dents of the Fiv­er Rivers area that by next year that com­mu­ni­ty will be con­nect­ed to a new waste wa­ter treat­ment plant which is be­ing built in Trinci­ty.

“In the Bon Air West area and in Five Rivers those plants have been there for a very very long time. Per­haps over 20 years. This plant is the Five Rivers Waste Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant. When I cam­paigned and even when I be­came min­is­ter I have heard about com­plaints about that plant. I cur­rent­ly have a team in the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) work­ing on some so­lu­tions to clean some of the un­der­ground pipes. Al­so, to do a com­plete ex­am­i­na­tion of the plant it­self and to get back to me. When I walked the com­mu­ni­ty, I was shocked that the plant was lo­cat­ed so close to the hous­es,” Gon­za­les said in an in­ter­view on Sat­ur­day .

Res­i­dents of the area have been com­plain­ing that the plant in Fiv­er Rivers has been over­flow­ing every time it rains and the prob­lem arose over the week­end again.

A video which cir­cu­lat­ed over the week­end showed waste wa­ter from the plant over­flow­ing.

Gon­za­les said Five Rivers is a fair­ly old com­mu­ni­ty and in con­tem­po­rary times, plan­ners would not build such a plant so close to res­i­den­tial ar­eas.

He added that it is an old plant and it is not con­nect­ed to any cen­tralised waste wa­ter sys­tem and even­tu­al­ly it will be de­com­mis­sioned.

“What we need to do is to con­nect the waste wa­ter sys­tem from Five Rivers across to the new cen­tral­ized waste wa­ter plant that we are con­struct­ing in the Trinci­ty area. That plant is sup­posed to be com­plet­ed next year. It’s way ad­vanced in con­struc­tion. We in­tend to tie in com­mu­ni­ties like Bon Air West, Five Rivers so we can aban­don some of those small­er plants. They have out­grown their ca­pac­i­ty.”

He said at the mo­ment they are man­ag­ing a “very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion” so that it does not pose any health risks to the com­mu­ni­ty.

“It has been told to me that WASA is try­ing its best to ad­dress this old waste wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture. What hap­pens is that dur­ing pe­ri­ods of heavy rains the wa­ter gets mixed up with the sew­er line and sew­er wa­ter is seen com­ing up from the sys­tem. The same thing hap­pened last year and in­ves­ti­ga­tions showed that a sew­er line was clogged. It was de­clogged and the sit­u­a­tion was solved. It is pos­si­ble it is the same prob­lem.”

The min­is­ter said be­fore the lock­down he had planned a tour of the plant. He has promised to ad­dress any fur­ther prob­lems re­gard­ing the plant.

Ran­dolph Ward, who lives in Five Rivers, told Guardian Me­dia that the plant has been over­flow­ing every time it rains.

He said, “We do not know if this wa­ter is treat­ed. COVID-19 is in the air now. We don’t know what could hap­pen. WASA gave a pri­vate con­trac­tor to man­age the plant. When­ev­er we had any prob­lems we would call him. He al­ways says that he would ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion. I am quite fed up. When­ev­er the rain falls it over­flows. A fence sep­a­rates me from that plant. This has been the sit­u­a­tion for as long as I can re­mem­ber. There is a bad smell.”