NWC urged to fix leaks on Lucea main road
Published:Thursday | July 28, 2016 | 3:55 PMClaudia Gardner
Wester Bureau:
Lucea's mayor Councillor Wynter McIntosh says the Hanover Parish Council will be writing to the National Water Commission (NWC), requesting that the commission conduct leak checks on its main pipeline, which runs along Seaview Drive in the seaside town.
The decision was made after Councillor Anthony Walker, of the Cauldwell Division, told the recent monthly meeting of the council that leaking pipelines were causing the busy thoroughfare to erode.
"Every single metre you travel on the road, there is water, and I am almost sure it is not seawater," said Walker. "Some of these areas, you can see where the pipe has now deteriorated the road in such a way that even if they come in and try to rehabilitate or repave or whatever, we will still continue to have these problems.
"Right across from the hardware (an establishment along Seaview Drive) a few days ago, one broke ... right across from the bank, there are like several valves in the middle of the road that create potholes. Right at Texaco gas station, I think there are about three or four valves in the middle of the road," continued Walker. "I see where they have tried to do some work out that side near the hardware, but it doesn't make any sense because the pipe under there is not secure. It is leaking."
McIntosh, who is also chairman of the Hanover Parish Council, recently demanded that the National Works Agency (NWA) do patch work on the roadway at Seaview Drive as according to him, because of the poor condition it was taking several minutes to traverse the 200-metre stretch.
"I had to tell the NWA parish manager that I was going to go public because it has become a nuisance to the people, and everybody says it is the responsibility of the Hanover Parish Council. So they (NWA) had gone and done some work," the mayor said. "But in the meantime, we will not allow the corridor to go back to the state that it was in."
NWC CHECKS AND VERIFICATIONS
Neville Clare, the councillor for the Lucea Division, said the NWC should be made to conduct the checks as soon as possible since the roadway is poised for a major overhaul.
"The water commission would be the one to verify and to give us that understanding if we have leaking pipes out there ... but the serious question we have on our hands is, if it is so, and we are about to venture on that major reconstruction of that corridor, then NWC need to do what they have to do now," said Clare. "So we need to write to the water commission to say, check your valves, all your connections, which they would have done to see if there are any leaks out there.
"We need water commission to do what they have to do now so that we don't go there and fix that corridor and then afterwards water commission come and dig up back the road. We need to write to the water commission to ask that they do their due diligence to know if they have leaks out there and to have them fixed them speedily," Clare added.