SOMETHING IS AWFULLY wrong with the South Coast Sewerage System, and the Barbados Water Authority (BWA), which has responsibility for its maintenance, must stop pretending otherwise.
It has been months that residents and commercial operations have been complaining before going public about a range of problems they have been encountering. These individuals and businesses cannot be making up things. They live and operate in an atmosphere of great inconvenience on a daily basis and are simply asking for relief.
For the BWA to lay blame primarily at the feet of culprits whom it accuses of sabotage is not cutting it. While we accept that there will be people who are so wicked as to remove manholes and allow the effluent to come to the surface, we doubt this could have been going on for a prolonged period without anyone being detected. It would mean that residents, businesspeople and passers-by are witnessing a level of vandalism that is negatively impacting them and this country and simply turning a blind eye.
The BWA, on the other hand, if armed with this knowledge, would have also fallen down in its responsibilities not to put measures in place to either catch those responsible, or make it much more difficult to tamper with the system.
The reality is that while the BWA appears to dally, many people and businesses being hard done by the sewage problem want action and not an idiotic debate. They want an urgent end to the stench, the inconvenience and the potential health threat they face.
Speaking consistently about the problem may make the leadership at the BWA uncomfortable, anger some politicians and provide fodder for others. But the public’s concerns are much bigger.
The BWA must not dismiss the public protestations because there is a precedent here. The experience of Emmerton, Lakes Folly, Cheapside and Fontabelle in The City with the Bridgetown Sewerage Plant has not been a pleasant one. For years, the nauseating smell emanating from that facility had been a major and prolonged headache for many residents and businesses.
What is worse on parts of the South Coast is not only the smell, but having to deal with effluent on the streets, even without getting into any semantics about whether there is raw sewage or not. The undisputable fact is that there is smelly waste water around properties and on the roads.
The BWA, as the agency responsible, must tell residents and business owners what the problems are and give clear guidelines on when they will be resolved. The ministries of health and the environment must indicate what they are doing in collaboration with the BWA to relieve the hardship being encountered by residents, visitors and businesses.
This is a major issue at hand and there is simply too much at stake. The BWA must provide an urgent solution. Don’t let us play ostrich.