Residents of Spring Way and other communities within the Manor Park, St Andrew area are perturbed after they found out recently that raw sewage was being channelled into gullies through pipes which emanates from big housing developments in the area.

President of the Spring Way Citizens’ Association Yashika Lopez cited that residents, who made major investments in property in the area, fear that the practice could make them sick as well as devalue their properties which they sacrificed and worked hard to acquire.

Lopez told the Jamaica Observer that her association, in collaboration with other associations in the area, called a meeting recently which representatives from the National Works Agency (NWA) and the National Water Commission attended. The aim of the meeting was to raise awareness on the approval process that would give developers the impression that it is acceptable to send raw sewage into gullies. Other related issues were discussed as well.

“Two weeks ago, we discovered construction of a piping along the Spring Way Gully. There was some construction going on at Norbrook Drive and two residences at the back of Spring Way were informed of that construction and they were approached to run sewage piping through their property to the gully. This was last year and we instructed them to say no. So when we discovered piping works being constructed in the gully two weeks ago, we naturally assumed it was sewage. It was later confirmed when we had a meeting with three of the agencies — National Environment and Planning Agency [NEPA], National Water Commission [NWC] and the National Works Agency. It was confirmed as well by NWC that it is piping for sewage.”

Lopez insisted that the community was not informed and raised questions over whether it is now standard operating procedure to build sewage pipes in gullies.

“We want to understand if that is best practice. What we understand is that the gullies are there for storm water run-off during rains hurricanes, etc. We also understand from NWA that sewage should not be running through a gully so we didn’t understand what the change in the procedure was. We understand that sewage piping should run under the road so we didn’t understand why is it not running under the road at Norbrook Drive and why it is being run through a gully. There is Norbrook Drive right there.

“We have concerns not just for health, but also for our storm waterway. Remember, everything is going to the sea. We don’t want raw sewage or effluent going straight to the sea, even though we know it is happening in some places. The concern is that we see a lot of construction going on around the place and we want to know if there is enough infrastructure in place to sustain the level of new developments we see in the area. Again, is this the best practice? We don’t know. We are yet to be answered. One can set a precedent, but is it best practice? I would like to understand that first and foremost. The other concern we have is public health. In terms of the health concern. The oxides it releases are not good for the body.”

Communications manager of NWA Stephen Shaw told the Sunday Observer that he would make some checks to familiarise himself on the details of the situation.

NWC Communications Manager Andrew Canon could not provide much details on what role the NWC could play to remedy the situation.

Efforts to secure comments from Peter Knight, executive director of NEPA, were unsuccessful.