RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, are plead­ing with the Gov­ern­ment to re­lo­cate them as soon as pos­si­ble, as they are falling sick from sewage spills be­hind their homes.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed them, raw sewage from bro­ken lines was seen be­hind three hous­es. Near­by, the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T con­tin­ued land recla­ma­tion as part of the San Fer­nan­do Wa­ter­front project. Sheets of gal­va­nize had been used to bar­ri­cade the con­struc­tion zones.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, res­i­dent Alexan­der Gibbs said the sewage has been flow­ing in­to their yards for over a month, cre­at­ing a health haz­ard and caus­ing res­i­dents, in­clud­ing young chil­dren to fall sick.

Gibbs ad­mit­ted that he had been re­lo­cat­ed from King’s Wharf un­der the tenure of the late prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, but he said tragedy had forced him to re­turn to the wharf, where he worked as a fish­er­man.

Asked why he ex­pect­ed com­pen­sa­tion a sec­ond time, Gibbs said, “My house at Thomp­son Gar­dens burned down in 2013 and I had to come back to the wharf.”

He added: “My doc­u­ments and deed are very im­por­tant. There is no house on that spot. My broth­er-in-law keeps the lot clean. I would like the Gov­ern­ment to build me a house there. I’m ready to move, I don’t want to give op­po­si­tion. That is not it.”

Point­ing to the sew­er, he added, “All day and night we fac­ing this stink. When the rain falls, it kicks up. It’s not smelling nice. When the breeze blows, the scent is ter­ri­ble. I un­der­stand that we need progress. We all want to move from here.”

Gibbs said af­ter the first re­lo­ca­tion, he and oth­ers had to build their homes from scratch with ma­te­r­i­al sal­vaged from Petrotrin bun­ga­lows.

“We weren’t for­tu­nate for the Gov­ern­ment to build for us. All I got was a lot of land, and we had to pay for it. We got no house, just land. And it was hard. For 30 years, we’ve been ne­go­ti­at­ing re­lo­ca­tion. When we were ready to move, they nev­er gave us a starter house. This ne­go­ti­a­tion is go­ing nowhere,” he added.

Dana Noel, a moth­er of three, al­so said she was des­per­ate to leave King’s Wharf due to the un­san­i­tary con­di­tions. 

“The con­di­tions are very bad. I can­not deal with this any­more. There is a dis­pos­able toi­let, which they clean every week. The toi­let pipes are mashed up. I am us­ing one bar­rel of wa­ter be­cause my wa­ter sup­ply is dis­con­nect­ed. They work night and day, and the chil­dren are go­ing to sleep at mid­night be­cause of these con­di­tions,” she said.

Noel ex­pressed her frus­tra­tion with the slow pace of the re­lo­ca­tion process. 

“We don’t mind mov­ing. They keep telling us for the last two weeks that they com­ing and they nev­er came,” she said.

She added: “I want them to hur­ry up and deal with me. I have a two-year-old, and he is get­ting sick. I want them to come and get my chil­dren out of this sit­u­a­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that five res­i­dents were re­lo­cat­ed re­cent­ly and boat own­ers from the wharf were com­pen­sat­ed. Calls and mes­sages were sent to San Fer­nan­do West MP Faris Al-Rawi for a com­ment but there was no re­sponse.