Aviary residents, NWC at odds over Colbeck Manor's sewage pipeline route

However, Aviary residents are uncomfortable with the idea of linking Colbeck Manor’s main sewer trunk through their community.

In fact this development is well advanced based on Old Harbour News’ owned assessment following a tour of the area on December 13. Understandably residents are deeply concerned and have expressed little faith in the National Water Commission (NWC), owing to the fact that they were belatedly made aware of such plans by the state agency.

The development comes amid a massive strategic shift involving Kemtek Development and the NWC, the latter having oversight of the portfolio responsibility to establish a sustainable sewage system for 900 Colbeck Manor units, 257 of which needs to be handed over to homeowners by January 2022.

Traditionally, housing developers are responsible for creating a sewage system to serve new schemes being undertaken, prior to NWC assuming ownership and management of the facility after a specified period elapse. 

In this particular case, the NWC has been brought in much earlier, with the state’s utility company implementing a new model which it believes is more eco-friendly and efficient. Under this new strategic goal in waste water management, the NWC said sewer networks are being integrated for the effective management of waste, similar to how its network of potable water system is integrated for domestic use.

What this also means, for example, is that effluent is centralized, as well as diverted to another facility in order to facilitate maintenance or improvement works which reduces the impact on the environment and human lives.

But the real fear of many Aviary residents in this particular situation is that future challenges related to sewage ostensibly will impact the community, as the NWC is yet to determine if the existing sewer infrastructure at The Aviary has the capacity to manage additional inflows of raw sewage from the 257 houses set to be occupied by homeowners early in the New Year.

Hence, the residents are demanding a review of the current plans. A mapping of this sewerage outlay sees Colbeck Manor’s main sewage line, which runs along the Lennonsville main road, connect to The Aviary’s sewer main  at the east end of Doctor Bird Circle. Inside The Aviary, this main sewer artery runs along Bluequit Circle going westward and then on to Barble Dove Drive before emptying out into the Aviary Pen sewage plant situated across the other side of the Bodles Gully.

In a recent meeting with residents of The Aviary, NWC Community Relations Officer Delano Williams said there is no sinister motive behind its intentions. In his view the development is merely a coincidence of an established new paradigm overlapping with an existing project.

“So what we do is to take out what we called a ‘stand-alone’ system and we now introduce gravity feed systems or where necessary re-lift pumps or booster pumps just to take the effluent from satellite stations to one major treatment facility,” Williams said in a Zoom meeting with a group of concern residents, which has been shared with Old Harbour News.

In August 2021, the National Environment Planning Agency (NEPA) granted the NWC approval for upgraded works to be carried out at the Aviary Pen sewage facility. All waste water treatment facility in Jamaica falls under the management of the NWC.

Williams disclosed that when complete, The Aviary Pen sewage facility will become “a fully tertiary plant,” meaning “this quality of the effluent” poses no immediate risk to the environment and will have the capacity to accommodate all 900 units being built at Colbeck Manor.

As things stand at The Aviary Pen waste water facility it has the capacity to accept sewage from the additional 257 new homes from Colbeck Manor, as the plant’s original design was built with an excess capacity of approximately 370 units, Williams and NWC engineer Patrick Daley pointed out in the meeting with a group of concerned residents.  

While NWC must seek approval from NEPA to expand it sewage facilities, it was unclear during the meeting if authorization is required from the St Catherine Municipal Corporation for them to connect a new sewage line to an established community.

Chairman of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation, Mayor Norman Scott, told Old Harbour News that NWC doesn’t require authorization from the Council but must give notice of their intentions to carry out such works. Mayor Scott said he’s not aware of such a notice being served by the NWC regarding this particular matter.

“We know that the systems ultimately come to us and we have been exploring both a method of upgrading our plants, making sure that we don’t have too many satellite plants, as well as public-private partnerships,” explained Williams.

“What we are doing at the NWC is seizing an opportunity to do an upgrade even before there is a risk of a breakdown that could significantly hamper your community.”

Alternate route

Pastor and homeowner Rev. Khani Brown is among those residents who could be directly impacted if the plans go ahead. And he too believes a proposed viable alternate route needs to be explored.

The alternate option is instead of going through their community, Colbeck Manor’s main sewer line will connect directly to the Aviary Pen plant located on the opposite side of the Bodles Gully, thus removing any direct impact on their community.

“There’s another route that they can use which is to run the line north of Presidential Estate, so they wouldn’t interfere with us down here,” he outlined to Old Harbour News. “So if we have a blockage it would be caused by us and not blockage caused by the waste coming Colbeck Manor.”

Rev. Brown’s wife, Andrea Small-Brown is a member of a recently formed steering committee seeking to revitalize the community’s citizen’s association body among other programmes.

Mrs Small-Brown, speaking to Old Harbour News, said: “Our major concern is that we do not want the effluent from Colbeck to come through our scheme. We cannot stop NWC from making connection to The Aviary Pen sewage system, but we don’t want them to bring it through our scheme.”

Andrew Lewis, another Aviary resident added: “We are not convinced at this point that The Aviary sewage piping system can handle that additional load, and so at this point we are still oppose to [Colbeck Manor] connecting to Aviary.”

“It is going to affect people like me,” said Adrian Salmon, another concerned resident. “We who live at the front are at the lowest level. It is going to affect my sewer system based on the fact that I am living at the lower level.”

Williams said NWC is “justified” in its decision which is a win-win situation for everybody.

“What makes sense to us from an NWC standpoint and we are very justified, is that we’re not going to put you as a community at a disadvantage,” he asserted.

Such assurance may do very little to build confidence among residents given that there are other major developments around their community that is ongoing or to come on stream in short order. And for now no-one truly knows if these developments will or will not connect to The Aviary Pen sewage plant via The Aviary housing scheme.