NWC assures that bog walk gorge will be fully restored

KINGSTON – The National Water Commission (NWC) is assuring that the Bog Walk Gorge in St. Catherine will be restored to its former condition, or better, following pipe laying activities, which will see the area being closed to general vehicular traffic for about two months.

The work, which will get underway towards the end of March, is part of the Jamaica Water Supply Improvement Programme (JWSIP), which  has a total cost of US$211 million (approximately J$17 billion) and, on completion, will bring an additional 20 million gallons of water to residents in Kingston and St. Andrew, St. Catherine and other areas of Jamaica.

Corporate Public Relations Manager, Charles Buchanan, speaking at a JIS Think Tank at the agency’s 58a Half-Way-Tree Road headquarters on March 9, said that a critical part of the pipe laying work in the Gorge and all of the other roadwork being undertaken under the JWSIP, is the reinstatement of the impacted road surfaces.

“We are committed, and the contractor is required, to ensure that the trench line and the areas that are impacted by the works are reinstated to either the same or better condition than they were found in before the work was undertaken,” Mr. Charles said.

He stated that the National Works Agency (NWA) is also required to certify the satisfactory completion of these works, and “we expect that when the work would have been completed in all the areas that we have been working in, that the motoring public will see significant improvements and they would have been restored to good driving conditions.”

The Corporate Relations Manager is also promising that superior work will be done on the Gorge, or the contractors will be required to correct any faults at their own expense.

“We expect that there will be no deterioration in the roadways based on the quality of the original work, but the project also has a one-year maintenance period, in which the contractor is required to see to the maintenance of the work that would have been undertaken,” he said.

The work being undertaken under JWSIP, which started in July 2010, includes the replacement of the Rio Cobre asbestos cement pipeline, which transports water from Bog Walk by way of the Gorge to the Kingston Metropolitan Area. About 60 per cent of the work has so far been completed, according to the NWC.

The project also makes provisions for the rehabilitation of the Constant Spring Water Treatment Plant and the intakes. This section of the work started on April 1, 2010 and is expected to be completed on March 30, 2012.

Another major aspect of the project, which also began last April, is improvement work on the Seaview Water Treatment Plant and the Stony Hill supply network, in order to improve plant capacity and enhance supply reliability.

The Stony Hill distribution network section of the project has been ongoing since April 2010 and, like the treatment plant sub-project, which started later, is scheduled for completion in September 2011.

CONTACT: WARREN WINT