Portsmouth raises a stink over sewage
Published:Monday | October 4, 2021 | 12:07 AMRasbert Turner/Gleaner Writer
Residents along Milton Place and South Parade in Portsmouth, Portmore, can hardly catch a breath of fresh air.
The source of their angst is overflowing sewage from two manholes that has left a terrible smell – and stigma – hanging over the southeast St Catherine neighbourhood.
Business owners and residents alike have reported that the filthy conditions under which they have been forced to exist stretch back at least five weeks.
“I am losing my customers. My daughter has to be studying in a mask inside the house due to this raw sewage,” Edwin Bygrave told The Gleaner on Saturday.
“It forms this nasty lake. We need it to be dealt with immediately. We have received promises, but nothing happens,” he said.
Bygrave operates a grocery shop that is surrounded by effluent, causing him to regularly pour diesel in the pond to stymie the breeding of mosquitoes and to suppress the odour.
Pauline Kelly, a householder, is desperate for a solution – even a temporary one.
She wants the municipal authorities to install a drain to redirect the stagnant sewage elsewhere.
“We have to place items on the road, as some drivers just continue to splash the problem all over the place,” an exasperated Kelly said.
Corporate public relations manager at NWC, Andrew Canon, said that the utility was aware of the situation and that a technical team was working to address it in a timely manner.
Councillor of the Edgewater division, Alrick Campbell, said that he and St Catherine South Eastern Member of Parliament Robert Miller met with community interests after raising the issue with the National Water Commission.
Campbell said that he has seen evidence that the NWC will be starting remedial work.
“There is a collapsed sewer main on Librarium Avenue which affected Milton Road and its environs,” Campbell said.
“The NWC has dropped shingles, so I know that work will start to address the problem.”