Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dents are com­plain­ing about a per­sis­tent stench in their com­mu­ni­ty which is em­a­nat­ing from a leak­ing waste­water line.

The res­i­dents al­so yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cerns about the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion of sev­er­al oth­er sec­tions of the line, which runs through the area and ends at the Beetham land­fill.

The leak, ac­cord­ing to res­i­dents who spoke to Guardian Me­dia, is lo­cat­ed be­neath a bridge in Phase 2.

The res­i­dents said raw fae­ces had been flow­ing in­to drains and an over­whelm­ing stench per­me­at­ed the area.

Pres­i­dent of the Beetham Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, Joel Lee, lament­ed, “This has been on­go­ing for years. There’s a burst sew­er line be­low the drain, car­ry­ing wa­ter from El Do­ra­do, Mount Hope Hos­pi­tal, pass­ing through Beetham Gar­dens to the land­fill. WASA has been aware for years, plus send­ing en­gi­neers. Sev­er­al spots are cav­ing in, caus­ing sew­er wa­ter to back up in­to homes and drains.”

Lee said res­i­dents were fed-up and they want­ed to meet with Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to ad­dress their sit­u­a­tion.

In re­sponse, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) said it had as­sessed the sit­u­a­tion in the area and of­fered to pump sew­er wa­ter out of yards and drains. The au­thor­i­ty ac­knowl­edged that sew­er over­flows in the area of 24th Street, at­tribut­ing the sit­u­a­tion to a build­ing de­mo­li­tion which ex­posed the pipeline.

It said in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed the pipeline was miss­ing an end cap, caus­ing it to be flood­ed due to heavy rain­fall and in­creased stormwa­ter.

WASA said it would con­tin­ue pump-down ac­tiv­i­ties to re­duce over­flows, while arrange­ments are made for the ex­posed pipeline to be capped off.

How­ev­er, Lee crit­i­cised WASA’s state­ment, say­ing it fo­cused sole­ly on one is­sue, over­look­ing oth­er com­mu­ni­ty con­cerns.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Ken­neth Lawrence, who lives near the area where the pipeline was leak­ing, said, “We’re ac­cus­tomed to the stench, hav­ing lived with it for so long, but noth­ing is be­ing done about it. I’d like to see ac­tion tak­en.”

Lawrence said sev­er­al chil­dren had fall­en ill due to the stench and raw sewage in drains.