ACKNOWLEDGING that the Corporate Area’s aged sewerage infrastructure is failing after years of underinvestment, Minister of Water, Environment and Climate Change Matthew Samuda has pledged that the Andrew Holness-led Administration will be the one to remedy long-standing wastewater woes through a multimillion-dollar overhaul of the system.

Through the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority (NaRRA), Samuda explained that US$200 million will be used to undertake a complete renovation of the city’s failing sewerage systems.

He was responding to questions about the persistent sewage issue in the Corporate Area at a Jamaica Observer Press Club at the newspaper’s St Andrew headquarters on Friday.

“The real issue is just that the lines have passed their useful life. They should have been changed in the 1980s and we’ve never had the financial capacity to do it. So you change a section and that pressure builds up on another section and it breaks and then you have the real issue,” said Samuda.

File photo shows a truck dumping sewage at the NWC plant in Greenwich Town, St Andrew, which Samuda has vowed will be moved after years of protests by residents.x

He admitted that a majority of the waste pipes in Kingston and St Andrew were operating beyond their years and capacity, and maintained that the revamp of the infrastructure is a critical component towards national resilience in the water sector and a functional distribution network of the sewerage system.

“Every time I have to go to a school or a community that is impacted by sewage, it weighs very heavily on me as a minister. Because you go there, you drive, and you have to leave after and the problem is still remaining. But we are committed to bringing change in the collection network.

“We will pursue a design-and-build contract that will see a full replacement of that network — certainly, as far as $200 million can carry us,” he said.

Samuda detailed that the upgrade will see the replacement of a major transition water main that runs between Mobile Reserve and North Street going out to Darling Street in downtown Kingston, significantly increasing the pipe’s capacity.

SAMUDA… the real issue is just that the lines have passed their useful life (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

West Street, Pink Lane and other roads that lead to Greenwich Farm and Collie Smith Drive in Trench Town — where residents have been battling bouts of sewage overflow in their communities — were also named by Samuda as areas of immediate interest.

“We have been monitoring the situation downtown very closely. Three years ago I had to go to Coronation Market to carry lunch for the team that was fixing a broken sewerage main. The NWC (National Water Commission) team was on the side of the road working on Christmas Day when they should be with their families. So the situation weighs very heavily on me and we continue to use the regular capital budget to repair the worst sections first,” said the water minister.

Samuda said that the initiative is projected to take two years of construction time, to ensure the proper replacement of the sewerage lines in the Corporate Area, which he says suffers from not only aged pipes, but also backyard pits and improper garbage disposal.

“Backyard pits, that is the enemy of water resilience in the Corporate Area. It is why every year we have been investing at an increasing rate in sewering Kingston. That is a critical step that we must take if we are to really achieve water resilience in the Corporate Area,” he said.

The Soapberry treatment plant was also flagged by Samuda as operating past its useful life and running nearly at full capacity. He noted that his ministry has been in talks with investors and the finance ministry to have the plant liquidated.

“We have employed the services of KPMG in terms of investment services. And we have worked with the Ministry of Finance to design a transaction that we expect to carry to market in the coming months. That will see divestment of the facility. But that divestment will be contingent on that purchaser’s ability to double the capacity of Soapberry and to move from secondary treatment to tertiary treatment,” said Samuda, further noting that it was expected to significantly improve the environmental health in that space.

Samuda also pledged that work will begin on the relocation of the Greenwich Farm loading bay for sewage trucks, which has continued to pollute the air quality for residents and schools in the community for decades without relief.

“We are doing the engineering now for the relocation of that loading space. And I intend to start that work this year and give the students and the school the conditions that they absolutely deserve. They have suffered for far too long and I am definitely going to be the minister that fixes that particular challenge,” he said.