Plant odour flares up

Residents of Lakes Folly and Chapman Lane have become so accustomed to the pungent odour emerging from the Bridgetown Sewage Treatment Plant that many did not even realize it had got worse.

When a Barbados TODAY team visited the area, most residents refused to comment extensively on the matter, indicating that they have been continuously contending with foul smells for years, making the most recent incident “nothing new.”

In a statement, the Barbados Water Authority indicated that over the weekend, it encountered a glitch with one of the blowers at the sewage plant “which resulted in some malodours being experienced in the immediate vicinity of the plant.

Consequently, the authority made some adjustments to the operations at the Plant, which has worked to reduce the odours and get the situation under control.

One resident told Barbados TODAY he was not aware that the plant was experiencing challenges as the situation in the community did not differ significantly from what he had come to expect after living in the community for decades.

Shawn Henry, one of the only residents willing to speak on record said he was away from the community over the weekend, but did not hear reports from neighbours about an unusual smell.

Instead, he complained that successive governments had neglected the hundreds of people still living in the urban community, some still awaiting word on compensation for the many issues faced as a result of operations at the plant. According to Henry, it has resulted in a certain level of indifference among residents.

“Since Mia Mottley come in, you have seen something’s being done, but other than that . . . The smell is going nowhere, but most of the time, the wind pushes it downward. Every once in a while, you would get a little swirl [foul smell], but other than that, it’s the ‘same old, same old’” he said.

Indicating that from time to time, he had fallen ill because of the smell, he stressed, “it has been proven from then until now, people in Chapman Lane, aren’t getting anything done.”