est. 2007

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Local Media Dithered as Sewage Plants Entered Failure Mode

The Minister of the Environment Wilfred Abrahams toured the location last week where two tanks designed to support the treatment of sewage by the Bridgetown Sewage Plant have been allowed to deteriorate because of lack of maintenance. What he revealed to the public is that one well has been out of operation for almost two…

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The Minister of the Environment Wilfred Abrahams toured the location last week where two tanks designed to support the treatment of sewage by the Bridgetown Sewage Plant have been allowed to deteriorate because of lack of maintenance. What he revealed to the public is that one well has been out of operation for almost two years and the other is operating at 20% capacity. God forbid the single operating well fails, the potential for another south coast event of greater magnitude is predicted to be the result.

The 2018 general election is behind us and ALL the ministers and members of parliament paid a price for their inept management of the affairs of Barbados. The final tally of the votes revealed that 70% of the voters placed their X next to Barbados Labour Party candidates. However, there are two questions Barbadians must ask and demand answers:

  1. How were South Coast and Bridgetown sewage plants allowed to deteriorate to the current state and the local media not made aware either via investigative effort or from ‘sources’ and information shared with the public?
  2. There is a management team in place at the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) charged with the responsibility for the management of waste water and all that it entails. Should senior managers at the BWA be held accountable for the sewage disaster as well?

Call out the prayer warriors as a nation holds its collective breath for the next 28 days.

84 responses to “Local Media Dithered as Sewage Plants Entered Failure Mode”

  1. Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right Avatar
    Piece Uh De Rock Yeah Right

    @ Charles Skeete

    You said and the ole man quotes “…What local media you talking about you mean those masquerading as media practitioners posing around with camera and pen and using their passes to see how much free food they can eat…”

    And you are absolutely right but this is perhaps a symptom but not the real problem.

    If it has not been said before, (i did not get a chance to read this blog earlier and I am doing so now but i have not finished) I respectfully suggest the following.

    You dun know that the ole man bereft as I am of literary skills does teif everything from the Internet….heheheheh

    Here is such a theft…”…Three Indian journalists have been struck by vehicles and killed in recent days in what their families and rights groups claim were deliberate attacks…”

    There is a danger being a professional journalist in Barbados which, while it will not get you killed like it does in other climes, will get you “assassinated” by the powers that be like Julian Rodgers was at CBC years ago and had to run to Antigua? I think it was.

    Besides your employer being sues for your acute journalism skills, FOR THE FEW THAT HAVE ANY SKILLS, there remains the power that the Minister David Estwick would have and would bring to bear on any enterprising journalist.

    Can you imagine how Carl Moore the Supervising Editor at the Nation would have had a conniption had one of his employees brought in a story about this or any dereliction of duty to his desk for editing?

    This is why blogs like Barbados Underground AND Naked Departure? (not sure about its name) have grown in popularity for though BU is not a salacious virtual encounter like ND (notwithstanding the purported vaginoscopies that Dougie Trottie is still looking into, figuratively speaking) the fact is that Bajans feel safe here behind VPNs, firewalls, blocked ports and the ever vigilant eyes of the Honourable Blogmaster .

    We, the people, have become “prisoners who masquesrade as free and independent men and women” Mr Skeete.

    You more than most men and women here can easily repeat many of the infelicities that you have seen during your time but have turned a blind eye to BECAUSE you would have wanted to ensure that there was “food to eat”

    Look, the point de ole man is right now is that fellers like Dale Nuff Teets and Edmund and all uh dem going come fuh de poor ole man cause dem gots to do what dem gots to do…

    De ole man ent really worried bout tings like that cause I have been to the mountain top … and do not fear man of woman born since it is appointed once to die AND THEN the Resurrection for the second death which Dale nor Edmund ent got no jurisdiction over.

    You have to get to that point where you say “this is right” or “this is wrong” and I will not be silent…while keeping vigilant with your firewalls and ports and downloads from Peter Harris’ Barbados Today’s website that WILL COMPROMISE YOUR COMPUTERS heheheheheh

  2. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    @Bernard Codrington June 12, 2018 2:46 PM

    May I add: ” By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread”. WE WERE TAUGHT THAT BIBLE TRUTH FROM CHILDHOOD SO WE BELIEVED IT AND PRACTICED IT AND OUR NATION FLOURISHED EVEN THOUGH MANY WERE POOR IN STUFF

    RE Managers solve problems not just identify them.

    COLONEL BUGGY WHOM I MISS WOULD TELL US OF THE OLD FOLK WHO WERRE IINOVATIVE ENOUGH TO SOLVE SUCH PROBLEMS

    MY BROTHERS IN LAW IN ST LUCIA WERE POOR YOUNG MEN WHO STAYED UP LATE AT NIGHTS 40 YEARS AGO MAKING PARTS TO FIX THE OLD TRUCKS BY WHICH THEY MADE A LIVING
    A FEW YEARS AGO ONE TOLD ME, THESE DAYS THE PARTS ARE READILY AVAILABLE

    NO NEED FOR INNOVATION ……..THUS NO POSITIVE PRACTICAL EDUCATION FOR THE YOUNG

    I WENT FOR BLOOD TESTS TODAY
    THE PHLEBOTOMIST STRUGGLED EVEN WITH HER FANCY VACUTAINERS
    I TOLD HER ABOUT HOW I WAS TAUGHT BY ONE OF MY SENIORS TO TAKE BLOOD WITH JUST A NEEDLE, AS WE COULD NOT DEPEND ON THE RECYCLED AUTOCLAVED GLASS SYRINGES TO GIVE THE REQUIRED SUCTION

  3. FearPlay Avatar
    FearPlay

    The ministers, my friends, the ministers are also guilty of dereliction of duty. How could they draw salaries for 10 years and not drive a stroke of work for the betterment of the country. How many millions or billions have been collected through taxes and what do we have to show for it? The only good to come out of this so far (I hope) is that the big-ups they thought were their friends probably are not taking their calls any longer. I am pretty sure that their “friends” who used to invite them to the various “Ports” for dinner and drinks and on long weekend cruises through the Grenadines or on fishing trips, will no longer be doing so. They have probably also stopped taking their calls. Understandably they have to start romancing a new set of house niggers.

    Word of caution to the wise. You will now be the target of gratis hotel accommodations, discounted personal transportation purchases, complimentary meals at high end eateries and sponsored oversea jaunts – don’t accept too many invitations and don’t be taken in by newly discovered friends. It’s your office they want to be friend to, not you. And most importantly, do what you are paid to do.

  4. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Fearplay,

    You need a register of gifts. Where I worked we had a register and every invitation to lunch, for a drink, overseas trips had to be approved before the journalist could accept it.

  5. David Avatar
    David

    Wilfred Abrahams is on his feet telling a sorry tale.

  6. Are-we-there-yet Avatar
    Are-we-there-yet

    BC

    You said above “You and I would have vire funds from a non essential line item and make out a case for the required funds in the next budget.”

    Unless financial procedures in the Government service were changed significantly during the last 18 years virement is “illegal”. It was not allowed. The project manager or CTO or PS could not change the use of funds passed by the Minister of Finance for any agreed purpose, whether required because of an emergency situation or otherwise deemed essential for the proper running of an important project. A supplemental vote would be essential to effect such changes even if adequate funds might appear to be available from projected savings or unused heads of expenditure.

    The public service is a different animal to the Private sector in many ways hence the need for serious and sensible Public Sector reform.

  7. Are-we-there-yet Avatar
    Are-we-there-yet

    FearPlay re. your 4:35 pm post;

    Yuh seem to know the drill. It appears that a lot of Public officers in previous administrations (but particularly for the last one) fell for the blandishments.

    I hope this one is different. I hope the Media will report as necessary when they observe any situations that seem to fall into this category.

  8. John Avatar
    John

    How can one go to work every day ,sees a defective piece of machinery ,does nothing about it and draws a salary for maintaining that machinery.

    +++++++++++++++++

    How can one go to the house of assembly and propose a budget where millions dollars worth of equipment will be put into the same careless hands who go to work and see defective machinery.

    Government should stay out of things it doesn’t understand and hire those who do understand to do the job.

    If you look at the video you will see the Government men all relying on the … contractor!!!

    We didn’t need a whole army of government people making noise, one could have done it much less expensively and still have done it expansively!!

    Leave private enterprise to make things run according to how they are able and just stay out.

    Make noise but stay out.

    The truth is both parties when in government have a basic problem in dealing with other people’s money.

    They will steal it and when there is none, it doesn’t matter if the person going to work can fix the problem or not, the ministers done teef de money.

    How we know it ent de same contractor doing the job as was hired by the last set of thieves.

  9. John Avatar
    John

    @John
    If one of the tanks has been inoperable for the last two years?

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++

    There used to Skodas on the road.

    Cheap cheap cheap.

    They did the job and got people from A to B.

    They wore out and until that happened people enjoyed the cheapness.

    Then one day, kaput!!

    Was it the first day or the 1000’th day that caused the car to fail?

    The answer is both, and all the days in between!!

  10. John Avatar
    John

    Put another way you would have to show me the maintenance schedules undertaken through out the life of the plant to convince me that just suddenly the tank went and failed.

    Now I thinking back, weren’t we told years ago that one tank was defective and had to be abandoned?

    Something in the back of mind is telling me I heard something like this … and in the press.

    Man, I am sure I remember something like that before!!

  11. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    John,
    Yo miss an important point: politicians in small economies like to be hands on, even if they are out of their league. It is part of the fiction of being in charge. Further, every Barbadian is an expert – with or without a bottle of rum.

  12. Talking Loud Saying Nothing Avatar
    Talking Loud Saying Nothing

    Well, well, well. My heart goes out to the upper middle class. Life must be tough. Perhaps they can find some solace in returning to the soil just like their grandparents. No more high end cars, no more foreign holidays, no more consuming foreign wines, no more living off the tax-payer’s largesse and no more thinking above their station.

    The era of fake prosperity is drawing to a close. How will our vaunted domestic businesses survive without government patronage?

    http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/166295/middle-class-seeking-mental-help-clinics

  13. John Avatar
    John

    If I were a member of the media I would relook the history of the Bridgetown sewage plant and see it there wasn’t a conscious decision to stop using one tank.

    I remember there used to be constant problems with the stench and the folks in Emmerton Lane.

    My gut tells me the plant was designed to have redundancy.

    Maybe that tank was sacrificed to keep the system running at a lower capacity because it was adequate for Bridgetown.

    No one can complain now that the South Coast Sewage System is failing and wish if only we had more capacity at the Bridgetown Sewage plant.

    If I am right and it is only a faint memory, then the BLP can claim to have been the architects of not one but both sewage disasters.

    Not trying to put in a plug for anyone but with the types of problems facing our country we do not need a bunch of lawyers with no STEM cells.

  14. John Avatar
    John

    The era of fake prosperity is drawing to a close.

    ++++++++++++++++++++

    Yup, …. Barbados has become an effluent society!!

    (Not original)

  15. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    if that tank was out for years where were they dumping the stuff that it was built for , it is not like it wasnt needed. just guessing they couldnt have eaten all the excess so they must have been dumping it for years, the swamp, the ocean where.

  16. John Avatar
    John

    “The BWA must not dismiss the public protestations because there is a precedent here.

    The experience of Emmerton, Lakes Folly, Cheapside and Fontabelle in The City with the Bridgetown Sewerage Plant has not been a pleasant one.

    For years, the nauseating smell emanating from that facility had been a major and prolonged headache for many residents and businesses.”

    http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/91083/editorial-urgent-solution-sewage-stench

    We really need a journalist to search the past papers and see how the problem at Emmerton, Lakes Folly, Cheapside and Fontabelle was solved … or bypassed.

    It is unlikely that the Bridgetown Sewage Plant was designed with the South Coast Sewage System in mind.

    It is more likely that the South Coast Sewage System was designed to incorporate ultimately the sewage processing in Bridgetown.

  17. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @David? “How were South Coast and Bridgetown sewage plants allowed to deteriorate to the current state and the local media not made aware either via investigative effort or from ‘sources’ ”

    Didn’t need investigative efforts.

    Didn’t need “sources”

    They just had to follow their noses.

    Both the Nation and the Advocate are across the street from the Bridgetown Sewerage treatment plant. Three minutes walk from the Bridgetown plant

    The media houses had to have been smelling the **it regularly.

  18. John Avatar
    John

    This is really an engineering problem with engineer responsibility.

    There should be a Registered Professional Engineer responsible.

    If the systems were privately operated there would be hell to pay and the roads to the Engineer in charge would have been clear.

    However, politics is at work confusing the issues and trying to lay blame every which way.

    Really as it stands, nobody and everybody is responsible.

  19. John Avatar
    John

    The media houses had to have been smelling the **it regularly.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Course they were and they were writing about it regularly … daily.

    I remember well!!

    That was years ago when I used to read papers.

    That’s why if they get up and look they should be able to dismiss the charge made against them in this blog as a nonsense!!

    They wrote about it and no one cared because the people affected were members of the “Lower Class”!!

    The South Coast however is a whole other story!!

    Different classes involved.

    Gabby wrote sung about Emmerton, but not because of the stink, but to put pressure on the then BLP Government for moving out all the little inconsequential people who once lived there.

    I stand to be corrected … but suspect no one will!!

  20. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Ping Pong June 12, 2018 8:30 AM “How much resources are needed to keep bush from growing in a tank? ”

    A ladder and a “boy from the block” and weed whacker? Or an oenergeticgranny with a hoe? Didn’t our grannies keep the whole of Barbados clean and tidy using very simple tools, and a lot of energy?

    Shhhh. Don’t tell the “experts” foreign or local that I told you. But notwithstanding weed whackers, hoes, and energetic grannies, weeds ALWAYS grow back (why wunna tink that Monsanto is so profitable?) So removing weeds can never a “one-time” job. It has to be ongoing and ongoing, and ongoing. It has to be constant. Weeds were here before you were born Weeds will be here long after you are dead. Clearing weeds is like raising children. If you are not working on it EVERY SINGLE DAY, then you are NOT doing your job.

  21. Gabriel Avatar
    Gabriel

    It was refreshing to hear the Hon Kerrie Symmonds make reference to two projects which would improve our competitiveness in the important tourism market.First the casino gambling which I am sure will incur reproach of bishop Atherley and the church generally.When the time comes for the referendum that measure will have my support,once the caveats are enshrined in law to protect the vice brigade who would invariably show their face and measure for the trade in flesh and those unsavoury elements attracted to casino gambling.The second point is the West Coast Sewerage Project which has been long in the offing and was championed by the same Kerrie Symmonds about 20 years ago when he suggested a road be constructed somewhere in Fitts Village to connect highway 1 to the Oxnards Road for an improved traffic flow.At the moment it’s either Holders Hill or the Worrel Roundabout to University Hill for that access.Fact is that the WCSP had an office at Holetown Police Complex but has been abandoned for lack of support by the last DLP do norhing government.
    This administration must re-visit that Sandals arrangement irrespective of the fall-out.Tourist spend is not generated by these giveaways.We don’t need Sandals that bad to give away the gen of a product we have.Lets encourage some more Coral Reef Clubs,Sandpipers,Sandy Lanes,Hiltons.We don’t need beggars and extortionists like Sandals.Sandals is perpetual poverty of the black man.

  22. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @FearPlay June 12, 2018 10:20 AM “When you take a grass roots politician who has never managed more than himself/herself and suddenly bestow upon them a position of authority with a sprinkling of fan worship (at constituency branch meetings), the idiot starts to believe that he/she is endowed with magical super powers and even a vastly superior intellect. There is no need for consultation or is there a need to take advice from seasoned career civil servant professionals.”

    The political class should be required to post their 11+, secondary school exam results, and their university transcripts on the walls of their offices, and on the mirrors in their homes. A daily look at those ‘C’s” and “D’s” and ” E’s” and “F’s” would remind them and us that they are NOT gods. And maybe, just maybe they would listen to those people who are actually bright AND experienced.

  23. Simple Simon Avatar
    Simple Simon

    @Bernard Codrington June 12, 2018 9:10 AM “Do they have no professional pride?”

    Maybe. Maybe not.

    But do they have/did they have’balls?’

  24. charles skeete Avatar
    charles skeete

    Not when the technocrats at the highest levels are political appointees whose fatted calf status depends on the recommendation of the Prime Minister
    a bacoward step in our system of governance arising out of Mr Barrow’s spiteful 1974 constitutional amendments which have been used by the political class of both parties up to now to the detriment of Barbados
    I am hoping that Bro Caswell would use every opportunity in the Senate to show the public the destruction these anachronistic amendments have wrought upon the proper management of the public service

  25. sirfuzzy Avatar
    sirfuzzy

    Unfortunately the same ole same ole. “The mash up and buy back syndrome” Government and government agencies don’t believe in the concept of “preventative or restorative” maintenance. For some reason there is no provision made for maintenance or maintainers in budgets. Or if the budget has the line item, is the line item ever actioned?

    Maybe it is time that UWI or SJIT offer tertiary level courses in maintenance. The real question is will any of these new graduates find employment in the central Govt. or SOEs. Furthermore if they do find work in SOEs or central Govt. their talents be ever used?

    As Sir Humphrey (in the BBC sitcom “Yes Prime Minister”) says “MPs and PMs come and go; but the civil service is here to stay” True reform of the civil service maybe the key to a new and better Barbados.

  26. David Avatar
    David

    We know the importance of maintenance, the failing more has to do with budget priorities driven by narrow interest of politicians.

  27. Well, Well Avatar
    Well, Well

    ‘This administration must re-visit that Sandals arrangement irrespective of the fall-out.”

    As they are already on the island unfortunately, sandals should be made to earn those concessions in increments of 5 years, if there are no benefits to the island, no concessions for butch.

    the greedy and selfish have no place in rebuilding the island…let him pack up his georgie bundle and head on back to Jamaica where he is allowed to do crap to black people.

  28. Well, Well Avatar
    Well, Well

    Some months ago I mentioned that the ones who lived in the heights and terraces who thought themselves safe should be more vocal in exposing what was happening at the time and upfront in holding those in government whom they knew where destroying the island…feet to the fire….because in reality, unless you have a serious income(s) offshore the island, or are extremely wealthy…ya will not be able to withstand extreme economic austerity and measures designed to rebuild the economy…without having to lower your standard of living much lower than that which ya might have become accustomed over the last 20 years..

    Ah guess now we will see the fallout and negative impact associated with enabling corrupt governments just because you were getting some too.

  29. Disgusting Lies and Propaganda TV (formerly CBC TV and Radio) Avatar
    Disgusting Lies and Propaganda TV (formerly CBC TV and Radio)

    The one question that i am asking my self and that of the DLP…. is where did the tax revenues really go too!!!! Don’t tell me all went to service debt…i’m sorry….. that excuse just will NOT fly!!!!! I mean almost every aspect of Bdos’ infrastructure has ran to the ground!!!!!!….a forensic audit is a NECESSITY!!!!!….to undercover where these billions went!!!!….it would be criminal for the Rt Hon Mia Mottley and the BLP administration not to undergo carry out one !!!!. I mean in just a week after taking office Mia and the BLP was able to uncover the criminal nonsense the DEMS did in the two months since parliament dissolved, just imagine what they may have done in the 10 years they were in power!!!!.I mean the DEMS came found an economy the Rt Owen Arthur had to fix and had running adequately in 14 years and in just 10 years has the economy back to the state that it was in 1994!!!!!…and the DEMS got the gall to critique the mini budget!!!!!!!…I know the DEMS is a clown circus but don’t make me laugh…..How come the DEMS aint saying they prepared a proper wicket for Mia to bat on…just like they said they did for Owen in 1994….Right now the existence of the DLP is a insult to peoples’ intelligence…they treated the electorate with contempt and have yet to apologize for it….and want to be a creditable party for people to support.in 10 years..no way!!!!!

  30. Ping Pong Avatar
    Ping Pong

    I have received pictures of the same tank that is the subject of this post after it has been cleaned! It did not take an IADB consultancy to do the job after all!

    I am sure David has the same pictures as these are being shared via whatsapp. It would be good for the pictures to be posted. All those apologists for the DLP and the BWA can explain what was stopping regular maintenance being carried out.

  31. David Avatar
    David

    Two weeks on the job Ping Pong. A pity we have to be congratulating a minister for getting a maintenance job done. It says a lot doesn’t it!

  32. Ping Pong Avatar
    Ping Pong

    Before getting on Facebook and talking about things he demonstrably knows little about, Estwick should discuss these pictures!

  33. akenatenI Avatar
    akenatenI

    Report- Sewage is the largest source of sun screen pollutants.
    https://youtu.be/28qWIPeOkvI

  34. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    I mentioned the lack of proper training for Nation journalist and a report today online proves the point. It reports that entertainer Mavada’s son has been charged with murder.
    Then it goes on to say the juvenile cannot be named. What they do not understand is he is not being named because the law states juveniles should not be identified. But they have done it by naming his father.
    There must be someone at the Nation who cares about the quality of their journalism. Can’t the company lawyer give some courses/seminars in basic media law?

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