The MANGROVE ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT GRAEME HALL NATURE SANCTUARY report was prepared by the Environmental Engineering Consultants, Inc for Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary in 2010. The findings in the report demand an immediate statement from the authorities regarding how the Graeme Hall wetland is being managed -importantly, the release of raw sewage into the wetland.
Instead of lying consistently. ..learn something.
“Swedish municipalities are individually investing in futuristic waste collection techniques, like automated vacuum systems in residential blocks, removing the need for collection transport, and underground container systems that free up road space and get rid of any smells.”
Hants December 9, 2016 at 10:35 AM #
@ John,
Do you know if the Sewage system is combined ?
” In a combined sewer, there is only one pipe which carries both sanitary and storm drainage. During dry weather, combined sewers carry all contents to treatment plants. However, during wet weather, the volume of water may exceed the system’s capacity and some of the water overflows untreated into the lake: this is called a combined sewer overflow.”
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=fc8807ceb6f8e310VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
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I don’t know.
I suspect the drainage from each property is separate from the sewage.
I guess the advantage of the drainage from each property going to a centralized location along with the sewage would be a bigger wastewater volume to process.
That would mean more output for reuse if Tertiary Treatment is done which would be good for Barbados.
I suspect that would depend on uniformity in buildings and an application of and adherence to codes.
These are foreign concepts.
My discipline is electrical/electronic not civil so I stand to be corrected.
What I can say is that there was a time when new buildings over a certain size (?) were required to have an underground storage tank.
Roof water was directed here.
I am not sure what the intention was but I think the change was for the good and opens possibilities.
Someone will have to one day sit down and think through how to combine the individual properties with storage tanks to make an impact on the limitations in water supply.
Like the sewage issues, opportunity exists!!
I think if you are connected to the sewage system you pay an additional charge for sewage according to the volume of water you consume so seems reasonable to assume the sewage system only handles sewage and not drainage
John on Dec 8th at 9.57 pm. “You need to thank Peter Allard!!” I don’t think you’ll find David doing that!
I think that this project was financed by the IADB and I remember arguing with one of their people about how the system was not suitable for the task. He called it “primary treatment”. I called it a “shit mincer”.
@ John
Just say that “you don’t know”.. and done nuh!! The billing structure used is not relevant.
Steupsss..
All Hants wants to know is if the sewerage system is designed to handle both storm water and sewerage at the same time.
While the answer is ‘NO’ … (because we really make no serious attempts to manage storm water in Barbados,) the sewerage system is a low pressure, gravity and pump driven underground system that is quite open to flooding by storm water during moderate flooding situations.
It is fairly inevitable then that it will be subjected to overload during flooding events. Indeed, there may well be situations during flooding, where the pools of ‘water’ accumulated may really be….
…anyway… Hants probably gets the picture. Let us say that the occasional flood probably ‘flushes’ the system out.
Could not havevsaid it better a “shit mincer”or better yet an expensive low grade pit toilet
Why John Boyce didn’t carry his madam to swim with him?She is no idyut.She went to QC.
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The Madam will probably insist he take a chlorox bath and wash down in disinfectant before she lets him cross her house again.
The blp built a pit toilet right next to a Ramsar environmental site home of wild life and endangered species How crazy can that be. ?
BT
I think Hants is asking about the connection between the individual premises and the Sewage plant,
Is it designed to take both sewage from that premises as well as drainage during rain fall?
The billing structure is relevant because it only envisages sewage created from water delivered to the premises by BWA and there is no charge for drainage of water delivered to the premises by God.
Storm water only seems to get into the tunnels with the pipes if the underground water level rises and forces its way out through the manholes.
The sluice gate should deal with this.
Peltdownman December 9, 2016 at 4:02 PM #
John on Dec 8th at 9.57 pm. “You need to thank Peter Allard!!” I don’t think you’ll find David doing that!
I think that this project was financed by the IADB and I remember arguing with one of their people about how the system was not suitable for the task. He called it “primary treatment”. I called it a “shit mincer”.
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I am pretty sure Peter Allard, … Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary … , financed the three day visit by the Coastal Zone Management Personnel to see how the Army Corps of Engineers in Florida control parts of the Everglades.
I am also pretty sure the report David is exhibiting was financed by the Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary … Peter Allard.
If you read above you will see.
If you can show me differently, please do!!
“The govt fix the problem”
According to news reports the south coast businesses who were affected by having turds and toilet paper floating in their parking lots and nearby streets (along with the associated stench wafting through the air) are not so sure, and neither am I. As far as I am concerned, I will wait for another heavy rainfall or series of rainfalls depositing similar volumes of water to see if the problems reoccur before prematurely congratulating the ministerial misfits for having fixed the problem. Just because days have gone by and the flood waters have finally subsided after flowing into the sea and into underground aquifers doesn’t mean they have necessarily “fixed the problem.”
Obviously the turd water would have flowed into those underground acquifers as well as into the sea, cant believe one word those ministers say, nothing.
ac: The blp built a pit toilet right next to a Ramsar environmental site home of wild life and endangered species How crazy can that be. ?
IMHO, About the same level of craziness as their propposal to put a gargage dump in Greenland, St. Andrew. Just shows our predicament come election time when we have to decide when casting our votes which party comprises the party of Tweedledumbs and which party comprises the party of Tweedledumbers, and admittedly that can be a difficult task.
I believe the concern of bacteria in the water bY citizens which was the main cause of vocal outrage was ” fix” and corrected measures were taken to relive the fears
However the issue of leakage from the plant might still be a priority which needs to be address and that is if the problem causing the leakage can be fixed long term ,but that again is or would be for the best brains and minds in that area of expertise to assess and resolve
The down side is that the wilde life sanctuary is being impacted daily from the pollutants and toxins that settles in the swamp caused from the run off of leakage from the sewer plant
“corrected measures were taken to relive the fears”
Yep…those fears are being relived and so are the transport board nightmares being “relived” daily by commuters.
Ramsar covention treaty to which barbados is a party
states
This intergovernmental treaty adopted on February 2, 1971 covers all aspects of wetland conservation.
Under this treaty all Contracting Parties must include wetland conservation considerations through the concept of “wise use” into their nation land use planning. The Graeme Hall Swamp was designated a RAMSAR site on December 12th, 2005
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there are many lawyers on both sides of the fence with Motley being known as one of the best in the field how is it that she could not have guided her party and leader away from the potential disaster which would have occurred by building a sewer plant so close to the wetlands
Wastewater
There are currently two Sewage Treatment Plants on the island – Bridgetown & South Coast.
Connection: Owners/occupants of properties connected to the public sewers are required to pay to the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) a ‘lump sum’ sewer connection fee and recurrent/monthly fee for the collection, treatment and disposal of their wastewater. These charges may be attached to your water account billings.
Treatment: The Bridgetown Plant employs Secondary Treatment of waste, removing all suspended and dissolved solids by combining them with activated sludge. The South Coast Plant, however, only treats waste to a Primary stage.
Lift Stations: In the Bridgetown system, there are 4 Lift Stations and 1 Seawater Pump Station, all in St. Michael, while the South Coast system includes 5 Lift Stations – 2 in St. Michael and 3 in Christ Church.
Discharge: Both Treatment Plants discharge the effluent water out to sea but the sludge generated from the Bridgetown Plant is disposed of on land. The waste from the South Coast (rags etc. captured in the system) is collected in a ‘skip’ and disposed of in the island’s landfill.
ACs…the present government is just nasty and have not been doing their jobs….bottomline.
Sue me.
Thanks for this Hants, it explains our current predicament.
What explains the situation is a bunch of blp doo birds who built a large pit toilet in a protected enviromental zone and now results caused by systematic failures have impacted public and the enviroment negatively.
Barbados signed the Ramsar Treaty after GHNS was built, and yes GHNS did finance the ill fated trip for 3 officials of the MOTransport & works to Florida. I say ill fated as the persons chosen by the Ministry were low level persons who seemed more interested in getting their per diadem payment and shopping in Florida at the end of the visit.And then took months to prepare a visit report.
Allard’s major beef with Govt was that then he bought the swamp and spent $35 million US to create the Sanctuary he was assured by the Govt that no further industrial or commercial development would be allowed on the lands surrounding GHNS and if i remember correctly this was stated in the Barbados Development Fund. However both the previous Govt & the present Govt voted to change the plan it was at this stage that Allard shut GHNS and went home to Canada. ONe may ask why the BDP was changed and an answer may well be who is the largest land owner of the land surrounding GHNS… it is CLICO.
Both Govts are to blame for the disgusting state of affairs surrounding the sewage system, as well as the incompetent lazy uncaring staff at the Ministry.
Even in the face of missteps by both political parties and with the country facing an environmental disaster as a result we have the political partisans lining up from both sides by resorting to the blame game. This South Coast Sewage mess must be viewed against the background we do not have a waste management system -garbage can be seen piling up around Barbados.
#JAs
And it was the same in the 90’s when the late Mr Jack Leacock christened Mangrove,St Thomas as Mount Stinkeroo.It took a born and bred Bajan with cojones,a man of balls intelligence,vision,determination,perception,broughtupsy,to clean up the mess created by an inept DLP government led by one they called ‘sandy’,but more specifically a blow hard they called one ‘goldie’,aka Branford Taitt,who apparently was too occupied with having workmen from the St Joseph hospital project carry out repairs or renovation at his blackrock property,and turned his back on the garbage stink the DLP oversaw,it took the then David Simmons to take the bull by the horns to bring both financial relief to some of his constituents and to Barbados in general in managing the disposal of waste like we have never witnessed before.And we continue to see neffinaraians parade in public talking crap every time they see a TV camera,neffinarians like Kellman,Inniss,Lashley,Jones,Blackett,
Lowe and the hysterical woman who threatened to try objectors to the finger printing laws the DLP was foisting on an unsuspecting public,this woman Verla DePeiza who treated those folk as guilty of treason.Lawd deliver we from these obstreperous,hostile,feral,loudmouth wimps,weasels,bullies and buffoons what Bree referred to as these stinking dems.
David why are u blocking a comment which i posted that states the facts about the various signed agreements between the govt of barbados and CDB going as far back as 1992 to protect our fragile eco system
The govt of the day knew about those agreements but yet laid out in parliament a piece of legislation to build a Sewer plant on lands which now has compromised and endangered our eco system
@Gabriel
BOTH political parties are to be blamed for the state of affairs we find ourselves as far as waste management is concerned. Didn’t David Simmons promised to resolve the Mangrove (Mount Stinkeroo) matter? Anyone who drove the Highway 2A this week after the rains would have been overwhelmed by the ‘stink’ emanating from Mount Stinkeroo -with Sandy Lane below.
David why the hostility because i would not follow your narrative of delivering a message borne on speculation and not facts.
The facts which shows a lack of good goverance was a disgraceful disregard to our eco system when govt of the day decided to lay out in parliament a piece of legislation to build a sewer plant on protected enviromental land which impacts the eco system
The last week explosion which pitted man against natures force exposed the govt of that period exuberance to put political interest against country best interest
David you are the one always talking about lack of transparency but when vital facts to expose failures with those ideas you agree you become irriated and make decisions to censor those who are in disagreement
@ David December 10, 2016 at 9:19 AM
Poor management of public sanitation and public health is going to be the undoing of this once well-managed country when 7th Standard educated people with loads of commonsense took their jobs seriously.
I am sure Glyne Murray of VOB rant would agree using the example of the callous approach by the authorities to the problem with the coconut vendors along the ABC highway.
It is because of the country’s formerly good track record in both areas of public hygiene that the infant mortality rate and its adult survival rate have improved significantly during the past 100 years resulting in Barbados having one of the highest number of centenarians in relation to its population size on the planet.
A good and reliable water supply along with an acceptably high level of public sanitation has been the lynchpin of the country’s economic development especially in the now vital tourism industry.
Now is Bim about to throw that stellar record all down the drain of incompetence and corruption by building expensive edifices in the interests of the political parties’ electoral financing and personal financial aggrandizement of members of the political class in the form of the BWA and SSA HQ’s instead to looking after the nuts and bolts of the country’s public sanitation systems?
Guess where the run off and leachate from Mount Stinkeroo winds up?
Swampy Ground/Sunset Crest, Holetown, …… Sandy Lane!!
The path is through the gullies behind St. Thomas Church and Bennetts for surface drainage and underground!!
Might not have in turds from the South Coast Sewage Plant but it has in sludge from the Bridgetown Sewage Plant.
Remember there was once a complaint of oil in Holetown in the early 1990’s after a down pour?
Somebody was dumping oil up stream of the gully behind St. Thomas Church!!
At least the authorities stopped that.
That’s why Greenland arose in 1994/5.
Sandy Lane said no $3 billion development with Mount Stinkeroo!!
Move it post haste.
Enter Richard Goddard, Lennie St. Hill and the Scotland District Association.
First time I ever went in a court was back then and I see OSA, Liz and David Simmons sitting up front like they was in de dock!!
I could only laff.
The judge come in and stop dead … “Well …. I never see so many people in Church as is hey”!!
He dead now, like Lennie.
” Both Treatment Plants discharge the effluent water out to sea but the sludge generated from the Bridgetown Plant is disposed of on land. The waste from the South Coast (rags etc. captured in the system) is collected in a ‘skip’ and disposed of in the island’s landfill.”
I am assuming the sludge winds up at the landfill … maybe it is used as fertilizer!!
so I could be wrong.
But it looks like the waste from the South Coast captured in the system finds its way via skip to the landfill, I assume Mount Stinkeroo!!
i love that photo of dem 2, waste side of waste
How many listened to Engineer Andrew Hutchinson on the afternoon talk show?
He blamed the inoperative Sluice Gate at Graeme Hall for the problem. His position is that the gate should be working, release the flow from the swamp at night and close about 4AM in time for the sea to be ready for bathers by 10AM.
He was guarded in his feedback about the problem of feces sighted but confirmed that with the high volume of water in the sewage system it was possible for some ‘escaping’ via the sewer covers along the Hastings stretch.
Where do we go from here?
@ Davd,
Hutchinson is quoted as saying ” close about 4AM in time for the sea to be ready for bathers by 10AM.”
What about the tides ?
Too besides only storm runoff water should be allowed into Graeme Hall swamp. NO SEWAGE.
@Hants
If we understand his correctly he is saying if the sluice gate is open on a routine basis it will relieve the backup/pressure on the sewage plant pump during times of heavy rainfall..
Is Graeme Hall swamp used as “backup” by the sewage plant during times of heavy rainfall ?
I passed by the manholes between Esso and Big B.
Two were “weeping”
Although it is invisible/covered/under the ground, I reckon the underground water level was up and forcing water out around the manhole covers.
Slowly though because there was no huge inflow of water to the swamp.
The channel is no longer blocked by sand and it looks as if the sluice gate is fixed!!!!!!!!
Glory be …… are my eyes deceiving me?
It was high tide and it looked from the road as though the se was up to the gate.
The gate was closed and water in the channel was about 1/3 of the way up the gate.
Will have to back another high tide but I expect I will see the sea on one side and the water from the swamp on the other at the same level.
Water will still be entering the swamp from the land side.
Surface runoff will have ceased but water will be making its way to the sea underground and coming up in the various depressions springs that exist in and around the swamp.
All it took to fix the gate was for GOB to get egg in its face and two ministers to make utter fools of themselves swimming in sewage.
There is hope!!!
The gate can be closed at high tide and opened at low tide if the level in the swamp requires it to be opened …… like what the 1945 legal document says!!
Sea water will make its way in underground and fresh water can escape through the channel and open sluice gate at low tide.
The swamp will breathe, the mangroves, if they at still alive will continue to live and all will be well.
… at least, until the other set of monkeys get into power then God only knows what will happen
If floods are expected, open the gate till the rain has passed and the level in the swamp ceases to rise and shows signs of falling!!!!!!!
Otherwise the road and businesses will flood.
… and if by then the sewage plant remains a problem there will be turds and whey all over de place once more.
Hants December 11, 2016 at 2:19 PM #
Is Graeme Hall swamp used as “backup” by the sewage plant during times of heavy rainfall ?
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Heavy rainfall I suspect just exposes the previous time the Sewage plant has had to take a dump in the Swamp.
I don’t think heavy rainfall is the trigger for the sewage plant to take a dump.
It happens when it happens!!
When I was in my prime I could tell you this and know what it meant!!
“In probability theory, two events are independent, statistically independent, or stochastically independent if the occurrence of one does not affect the probability of the other. Similarly, two random variables are independent if the realization of one does not affect the probability distribution of the other.”
Heavy rainfall and sewage plant dumps are stochastically independent events
….. unless God decides to teach us a lesson and show us it is a sin to stain and kill his creation!!
What if the sewage pumps are faulty and therefore underperformed during the recent heavy rainfall?
@ David
Think for a moment Boss…
If we are incapable of maintaining a damn bus fleet, garbage fleet, water pumps in pumping stations, simple buildings – such as the old NIS one in Fairchild street; simple roads, …or even a 19th century-technology school like Cawmere…..
…what are the chances we can maintain pumps that pump shit….?
Anyone who expects that the South Coast Sewerage plant would ‘work’ beyond moving some jobby around ….has to be delusional.
Wunna ever heard of the BLP’s pulverisation plant? …another big scam where millions were spent to ‘move garbage around’ while telling people that we were using some ‘advanced’ technology.
When the truth comes out it will be sobering.
David December 11, 2016 at 6:31 PM #
What if the sewage pumps are faulty and therefore underperformed during the recent heavy rainfall?
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The Sewage Plant in Graeme Hall does not as I understand it deal with water from rainfall.
As I understand it pipes bring sewage from individual premises to the central location.
It is “processed” and the liquid output is sent to the Hilton Outfall.
Any stuff, rags etc. taken out is put in a skip and sent to the landfill.
I get the impression from a BWA statement that there had been an event on 11th Nov when there had been a breakdown and sewage was put into the swamp
As I understand it the heavy rainfall (6+ inches) had an impact on the swamp, not the plant.
It caused the level to rise.
The Sluice Gate was closed
The level in the swamp rose and spilled into various business premises.
It took with it whatever was in the swamp that could move.
It does not seem as though the sewage pumps would have been overwhelmed once they were only dealing with sewage from the various premises
The BWA operates pumps at various pumping stations 24/7
I get water 24/7
So I am satisfied that the BWA is quite capable of operating pumps.
I know some of these pumps are 250 feet plus underground so I know they have some very capable staff whose efforts I applaud.
Nothing in the Private Sector can match what goes on underground, out of sight.
I have seen times when I am out of water and the BWA will say the pumps broke down.
Any electro mechanical system will
Usually it will be a burst pipe.
The difference with the water is that we get it from reservoirs so if the pumps in the wells break down there is a buffer.
There is also backup as it is possible as I understand it to shunt water from reservoirs around
There can’t be a buffer if the sewage pumps break down and delivery to the outfall cannot be effected except to bypass and go into the swamp.
Read the report and you will see there are two 8 inch pipes for this purpose, laid in 2003
It they stop the flow of sewage into the plant because they can’t deliver to the outfall off Hilton there will be a backup at the various individual premises.
There may be a short period when the capacity of septic tanks will mask the breakdown at an individual location but it can’t be long.
I am aware that there recently such a backup at various locations on the South Coast which coincides with what I understand the BWA to have said, there was a breakdown.
The rain then exposed what would have appeared to have been under control as the disaster it was.
It raised awareness of the problems we face.
I think the BWA has accomplished great things against the odds but they are hamstrung by their superiors.
Hear John Boyce speak to procurement.
We can’t spend $7 million on a celebration, stint on such an important part of day to day life and not expect issues to arise.
No one expected the rain!!
It is called flying by the seat of your pants!!
It works … but when it doesn’t look out
The sewage plant has multiple problems which cannot be fixed sufficiently enough to handle overloads it is time for a new plant .
that is what happens when small brains not understanding value and proportion to cost tackle problems that their brains are unable to absorb.
The BLP buitl a sewage plant at minimal cost and this is the long term effect all the patching in the world is not going to fix the problems of sewage leak as more daily volume cause by frequent usage would lead to over flows
@ ac December 13, 2016 at 6:36 AM
A donkey criticising jackasses.
@ John 10:52 PM
You admitted that your expertise is in electrical /electronics…..
Sometime you should just admit that you don’t know shit… and stop the speculating… and mumbling incoherently…
steupsss…
..same nonsense that you do about the racist, slave-owning Quakers.
….”all the patching in the world is not going to fix the problems of sewage leak as more daily volume cause by frequent usage would lead to over flows.”
And the retards in parliament, just like you, know all of this and are still trying to patch it up instead of using the alternative.
Do not expect me to tell you what the alternative is too ACs…ah have no sympathy for yall, at all, at all…lol
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