MONTEGO BAY, St James

Relief is on the way for the residents of the Cornwall Courts housing scheme who have been suffering for almost a decade under the community’s ramshackle sewage treatment plant, as government plans to spend almost $300 million to tackle the vexed issue within the next 18 months.

“We are pursuing the work quite aggressively,” Water and Housing Minister Dr Horace Chang said yesterday. “We have already awarded a contract for roughly US$600,000, (JA$45m) to procure the pipes which we expect in the island within another three months.”

He said as soon as the pipes have arrived another contract valued at $250 million would be signed to facilitate the civil works. The plan calls for the “retirement” of the existing problem-plagued Cornwall Courts plant and the extension of the sewage lines from the community to King Street, linking it to the efficient Bogue treatment facility.

“What we are really going to do is to take Cornwall Courts off the old and inadequate run-down system, and to tie it into the major Bogue system into Montego Bay, and that is going to be done,” he said.

Concerns have long been raised about the inadequacy of the Cornwall Courts treatment plant, which currently serves almost 5,000 households.

Built by the state-run National Housing Trust (NHT) almost 20 years ago to accommodate 1,500 housing units, the facility is now unable to accommodate the large volume of waste from the rapidly growing community.

The existing volume of waste has given rise to several mechanical problems at the plant, resulting in the regular discharge of a foul odour in Cornwall Courts and its environs.

Fed up with the long-standing problem, the residents have taken to the streets on numerous occasions to publicly register their disgust. Just last week, the disgruntled citizens blocked sections of the Green Pond to Cornwall Courts roadway, in a bid to highlight their frustration.

At that time, the residents claimed that the stench from the plant had once again become unbearable.

Some – like Sherman Thompson- alleged too, that raw sewage was being pumped into the North Gully, which ended up in the sea.

“The raw sewage that let out of the plant come through the gully and sometimes we see the waste matter going through it, and end up at the beach,” Thompson said.

Yesterday, an official at the St

James Health Department concurred with Thompson.

“Sometimes when the plant doesn’t work properly you might have the sewage going through it without much treatment,” he told the Observer West, noting that such occurrences could result in waterborne diseases.

He said however, that the Health Department is constantly monitoring the operations at the treatment plant.

Meanwhile, Chang said that until the multimillion-dollar project is complete, the NWC would pursue an aggressive programme to adequately maintain the quality of the treatment plant, and to at least keep it “bearable”.

“We are also looking at a proposal to improve its efficiency until the construction if finished,” he added.