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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

HDC to stop sewerage woes at Union Hall

by

Sascha Wilson
1854 days ago
20200128
Marc Byer a resident of Chestnut Avenue, Union Hall, San Fernando covers his nose as he shows where sewage water is flowing into a drain causing an unbearable stench and making residents sick.

Marc Byer a resident of Chestnut Avenue, Union Hall, San Fernando covers his nose as he shows where sewage water is flowing into a drain causing an unbearable stench and making residents sick.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Over the last two months, res­i­dents of a com­mu­ni­ty at Union Hall, Cross Cross­ing, San Fer­nan­do have been en­dur­ing the aw­ful stench of raw sew­er­age per­vad­ing their homes.

Con­cerned about their health and well be­ing, res­i­dents have had enough and are call­ing for im­me­di­ate ac­tion.

They be­lieve the raw sew­er­age is flow­ing from a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) sew­er­age pump­ing sta­tion in­to a drain run­ning par­al­lel to their homes at Chest­nut Av­enue.

“Since the neigh­bours in HDC move in we are get­ting raw sew­er­age com­ing down in the drain. We com­plain to WASA about the pump­ing sta­tion be­cause the pump­ing sta­tion is in WASA colours, but they said it isn’t theirs. What they are say­ing is HDC own. We try to get in con­tact with HDC, we have not yet spo­ken to any­body con­cern­ing it be­cause we get­ting a run around right through,” said res­i­dent Kevon Nep­tune.

He com­plained that they are forced to close their win­dows and doors at all times and keep their chil­dren in­doors.

“All of us have lit­tle chil­dren on the street. I have three lit­tle chil­dren five years, three years and eight months old and they have to suf­fer the smell and the flies and every­thing that comes along with this raw sew­er­age.”

Not­ing that the moss is white and not green which in­di­cates that it is raw sew­er­age, Kei­th Wor­rell said the scent gets worse in the night.

“We smelling that sew­er­age from about No­vem­ber month and right through the Christ­mas. Peo­ple could not even have a good Christ­mas.”

Wor­rell said they would on­ly get some re­lief when it rains and there is a gush­ing flow in the drain.

Clyde Per­me­ll, an­oth­er res­i­dent, com­plained, “Clear­ly HDC must have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in terms of what’s hap­pen­ing here which threat­ens the life of peo­ple liv­ing on this street, the small chil­dren and every­thing, just imag­ine what is hap­pen­ing here.”

Nep­tune said they are con­cerned about the im­pact the ex­po­sure to hu­man waste is hav­ing on their health.

“Right now it have the coro­n­avirus go­ing around here. The coro­n­avirus is not from mos­qui­to, but we have mos­qui­toes breed­ing in fae­ces wa­ter and we don’t know if that could bring a new virus in our lil area here and we try­ing to pre­vent that. We will like the prop­er au­thor­i­ties to see about it be­cause right now we see­ing dead fish in the drain and if the fish can’t live here I feel we can’t live here too.”

When the stench be­comes un­bear­able in the night, Nep­tune said they some­times leave their homes and re­turn the fol­low­ing morn­ing. Com­plain­ing that they of­ten feel nau­seous, Marc By­er said his neigh­bour re­cent­ly had a ba­by.

HDC said they are aware of the prob­lem and apol­o­gised to res­i­dents. In an email re­sponse from Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion De­part­ment, man­ag­er Dike Noel said HDC vis­it­ed the site and the ser­vices of a new con­trac­tor have been pro­cured to treat with the is­sue.

“The con­trac­tor is ex­pect­ed to be­gin work on the site Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 28. The work is ex­pect­ed to last two (2) days. It is our be­lief that res­i­dents will be­gin to ex­pe­ri­ence some re­lief by to­mor­row evening,” said Noel.


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