GLOBALLY, two million tonnes of untreated wastewater is discharged into waterways each year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/ UN Habitat .

Similarly, in Jamaica, between 53 and 97 per cent of the organic pollution in the Kingston Harbour was caused by trade effluent and sewage up to April this year, when the National Resources Conservation Regulations (Wastewater and Sludge) were passed.

But companies like Rose Hall Developments Ltd which operates a sewage treatment facility in Montego Bay is helping turn things around. The plant resells treated water to the very hotels on the elegant corridor whose sewage it treats, thereby significantly reducing the amount of effluent it pumps into the sea as waste.

“As a matter of fact, we don’t waste any water,” said manager Cynthia Scott, explaining that the treated effluent is stored in a 40-million gallon lake then resold to the hotels for irrigating their golf courses. A single golf course can use up to 350,000 gallons of water per day, she added, explaining the demand.

Scott was speaking to a group of journalists from the region who toured the facility as part of a media workshop held in tandem with the Second Global Conference on Land-Ocean Connections (GLOC-2) in the second city at the beginning of the month.

The practice of recycling treated wastewater is a strategy being pushed by UNEP and other bodies dedicated to the preservation of the environment, as it seeks to address water shortages occasioned by drought and other effects of an ever-warming climate.

Civil engineer Stephen Ntifo, who was a participant in the UNEP/Government of Jamaica-organised GLOC-2, called it a “true service”, the value of which impacts human health and quality of life, the environment as well as biodiversity. As such, he advocated for a “long-term sustainable and profitable wastewater service sector in every country”.

Wastewater, he said, which can be domestic, industrial or commercial, agricultural and rural, or urban and non-agricultural, can be used as a fertiliser and soil improver, and can produce bio-gas, a form of renewable energy.

“We need help create a wastewater service sector in every country because the value and benefits far exceed the costs. We need to create and improve existing systems to make it happen – others have done it and are doing it,” he said.

That includes Rose Hall Developments, though on a small scale, with only eight customers to date.

In addition to the liquid part, the facility also recycles the treated sludge from the solid waste, composts it with organic cuttings from the golf courses and uses it as fertiliser in the company’s plant nursery.

She explained that the facility, spread over five acres, can treat over 1.25 million gallons of sewage per day, but is now doing roughly 500,000 since it’s the slow season for hotels.

The untreated sewage begins the process in a phase separator or dewatering unit where non-organic material is filtered out. It then goes to a flow equaliser where two huge tanks balance the pH levels. After that, heavy-duty pumps send the flows to a treatment plant where it is processed using activated nitrates.

Rose Hall Developments, which is owned by the Rollins family, is sited on a former sugar plantation famous for former owner Annie Palmer, the White Witch of Rose Hall, who is said to have killed her husbands and who purportedly haunts the place to this day. Its primary business is commercial and residential real estate development, but it also includes the operation of Rose Hall Great House, hotels and golf courses, an extensive plant nursery, and the sewage treatment plant.

According to Scott, the idea for the treatment plant surfaced around 2000 when a popular hotel arrived in Jamaica. At that time, she explained, there was no central sewage treatment plant in the area, much less any big enough to accommodate large hotels. The older properties, she said, had individual treatment facilities.

“We saw an opportunity and we took it,” Scott said.

It received approvals from the local planning authorities in 2004 and spent an initial US$5 million setting up operations, which it completed by 2007. It later spent an additional US$3 million to increase its capacity.

The benefits to the environment aside, Rose Hall Developments is reaping handsomely from its investments.

“It’s a very profitable business,” Scott boasted. “Sewage treatment is our main job, so the money from reselling [the treated wastewater] is just the gravy.”

“We’re making our loan payments and then some,” she added.

There are benefits to the consumer too, as the rates are 20 per cent less than those charged by the national water and sewage utility provider.

Rose Hall wants to take its conservation efforts even further by using renewables to run the 24-hour “energy intensive” operation, but that is still some way off, according to Scott, who said that it is still doing the requisite research to decide which option fits it best.