Government has allocated $2 million in this year’s budget to continue work on the long-delayed sewer system in East End and Long Look, and more funds could be made available if needed as the project nears completion, according to Communications and Works Minister Kye Rymer.
Asked for updates by opposition member Stacy Mather at last Thursday’s House of Assembly meeting, Mr. Rymer — who promised in 2020 to complete the project in 2021 — did not provide a target date for the system’s launch.
But he did brief Mr. Mather (R-at large) on the remaining works involved in five final phases of the project.
Two of these phases have not yet begun, according to the minister.
The contract for one of them — connecting the gravity and main pump lines near the Long Swamp pump station — is currently being vetted by the Attorney General Chambers, he said.
The other involves connecting households to sewer lines, which will be the final task before bringing the entire system online, he explained.
“Other phases are currently ongoing, which includes the repair and commissioning of the wastewater treatment plant at Paraquita Bay and the construction of the pump station at Long Swamp,” Mr. Rymer said. “These works commenced in 2024, with the commissioning of these two components expected in the second quarter of 2025.”
Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry’s Procurement Unit is also tendering another project to connect the Parham Town-to-Long Swamp mainline to the East End area, according to the minister.
Enough money?
Mr. Mather followed up by asking whether the $2 million allocated in this year’s budget is enough to complete the project.
Mr. Rymer replied, “Based on the tendering process, I’m not sure what will come back, but I know this is a project that we have committed to get completed, and I’m sure the funds will become available once we’re to that stage.”
Decades of delays
The EE sewerage project is part of larger plans for a national sewage system that date back at least to 1974 but were hampered by decades of delays that cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars due to scrapped plans and subpar work that had to be restarted numerous times.
In 2010, the Virgin Islands Party-led government awarded a no-bid contract to the United Kingdom-based company Biwater, which resulted in Biwater’s completion of a water plant and two sewerage treatment plants: one at Burt Point and one in Paraquita Bay.
The Burt Point facility near Road Town started processing sewage in late 2015, though following Hurricane Irma it stopped operating until being recommissioned last April.
But the Paraquita Bay plant, which was completed around the same time as the Road Town one, has never been used: Despite patchy progress over the past decade, successive governments never completed the pipe network and other infrastructure to connect the plant to East End.
At least twice, the government transferred money away from the EE/LL sewerage project to another purpose: first to the new Dr. D. Orlando Smith Hospital and then to the pier park project.
