NWC addressing sewage overflow on Marcus Garvey Drive

The National Water Commission (NWC) says it is working to fix a damaged pump on Water Lane in Kingston which is causing an overflow of sewage and subsequent traffic pile-up on Marcus Garvey Drive. 

Acting Corporate Public Relations Manager at the NWC, Delano Williams, told The Gleaner that debris from illegal dumping was washed down by recent rainfall and has clogged the pump, causing a reduction in the pumping of sewage. 

“As we speak our maintenance team is responding to do the correction work on the pump so we can remedy the overflow, and will be looking at some longer-term measures because we are constantly facing the intrusion of garbage and filth,” he said. 

He said the situation should be  fixed within the next 12-24 hours. 

Williams in the meantime is urging citizens to desist from illegally dumping waste in manholes, which he said exacerbates the issue. 

“The frequency is worrying, even one is too much because it causes significant issues for us. With overflows it also impacts traffic along the Marcus Garvey thoroughfare and it also impacts our operations in that we are having to replace these pumps at almost an alarming rate,” he said. 

“As we speak we now have to source pumps valued at over 20 million dollars at an alarming rate to replace the ones that were damaged and we're still having to repair the damaged ones in order to always have backup still,” he added.

-Sashana Small

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