Contracts have been awarded in a TT$1.2 billion investment in the rehabilitation of T&T’s waste water treatment plants to allow for a centralised sewerage system. This was announced at a press conference yesterday at Radisson Hotel, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain. The funds, which have been acquired by the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) through two loans from the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), will go toward constructing new plants in Malabar, San Fernando and Maloney.
T&T already has over 200 waste water treatments plants but head of Wastewater Projects at WASA Denise Lee Sing-Perreira said “quite a few” of those were not functioning properly and would be decommissioned. “A lot of the facilities we have are non-functioning or not operating effectively as in some cases waste water will enter the site before being released into the open environment,” she added.
Lee Sing-Perreira said that did not comply with the Environmental Authority’s Draft Pollution Rules. “The new system will be better for the environment and align itself with the EMA’s rules,” she said. Lee-Sing-Perreira said T&T had not seen any improvement in waste water plants in over 50 years. The project, which is essentially a complete restructuring of the country’s current system, will take between five and eight years to complete and will be completed in three phases.
According to WASA CEO Gerard Yorke more than 200,000 people would benefit from the work. He said the projects would seek to expand T&T’s sewerage system to satisfy the increasing demand by citizens. “With respect to sanitation, it is estimated that only 30 per cent of T&T’s population is serviced by centralised waste water facilities, with the remaining 70 per cent being serviced by on lot systems which are mainly septic tanks and pit latrines,” Yorke said.
Contractors have already been chosen to execute the work which is expected to begin by the end of the year. Head of WASA’s strategic planning and investment Alan Poon King said the nature of the work to be conducted would entail excavation and underground infrastructure work. He anticipated that while work continued, residents in some areas would be negatively affected by disruption to traffic but added part of the process would be to consult with residents.
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Phase one of loan 2890/OC-TT of US$246.5 million will focus on the construction of two new plants in the Malabar and San Fernando. Phase two will continue integration and expansion of the sewerage network for connection to the new regional plants and phase three would expand the wastewater collection in communities to cover the population in catchment areas.
The other loan—2600/OC-TT of US$50 million—will be used to facilitate the takeover, refurbishment, upgrade or decommissioning of the plant in Maloney. Chinese company Sinohydro Corporation Limited has been chosen for construction of the Malabar wastewater treatment plant and collection system at a total cost of US $96 million. Spanish firm Acciona Agua SAU and Mexican company Atlatec SA de CV will construct the San Fernando plant at a cost of US$101.6 million.
