Fighting Water Pollution

Harbour View residents win long battle

NWC to fix age-old sewage plant

Thursday, July 08, 2010

RESIDENTS of Harbour View in eastern Kingston have won their decades-long fight to have the National Water Commission (NWC) fix a dilapidated sewage treatment plant that has for the past 20 years been dumping untreated waste into the community and the sea.

The victory in the Supreme Court comes in the form of a consent judgement on Tuesday, which compels the NWC to have a new treatment plant in place in 18 months' time and to "clean up and repair the damage to the environment" caused over the past 25 years.

The court also ruled that an interim solution for the plant be implemented within six months.

Following years of unsuccessfully lobbying for the problem to be fixed, the Jamaica Environmental Trust (JET) and a group of residents, led by Carol Lawton, applied for a Judicial Review in February seeking declarations from the court that the NWC, the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) and the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA) had all failed to carry out their statutory duties.

But in an unexpected development Tuesday, the government agencies, advised by the Attorney General's Chambers, conceded almost all of the arguments, making a trial unnecessary.

"This has been a very long road. The Harbour View sewage treatment plant was one of the first places I was taken back in 1990 or so [that] sparked my interest in environmental issues. It was not working then; it is still not working, but we hope this consent judgment will result in finally getting the plant fixed," JET chief executive officer Diana McCaulay said in a release yesterday.

According to the judgement:

* The Kingston and St Andrew Health Department acted in excess of its powers under the Public Health Act when it gave the National Water Commission six months to abate the discharge of untreated or partially treated sewage on land and in the sea, and then further extended this period for another six months.

* The National Water Commission failed in its statutory duty to operate and maintain the sewage treatment plant at Harbour View. The NWC must clean up and repair the damage done to the environment over the more than 25 years of discharge of sewage on land and into the sea.

* The National Environment and Planning Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Authority failed in their statutory duty to have served an Enforcement Notice on the NWC under the NRCA Act

* An interim solution for the plant will be implemented within six months, with the completed plant capable of meeting legal standards to be constructed within 18 months.

The judgement requires the NWC to keep JET and Harbour View residents informed of the progress, including scheduled visits to the work sites.

Lawton said in the release that residents have over the years paid both monetarily and with the quality of life as a result of the issue.

"After years of talking, this shows that when the citizens are committed they can change the non-responsive actions of government. The citizens' association is to be commended for finally taking the last resort of going to court. We have paid dearly in both dollars and quality of life in Harbour View because we paid for a service that was not delivered for 30 years, while being exposed to environmental risk of serious diseases with the regulatory authorities sitting by," she said.

The group was represented by attorney Clyde Williams.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Harbour-View-residents-win-long-battle_7780762