The new Tucville sewage receiving station at Turning Point, Tucville has been completed and will serve about 4,000 residents of the Tucville and Stevedore housing areas, besides allowing proper disposal of sewage by residents.

The new facility has been converted to collect not only the sewage from the Tucville community but also sludge from septic tanks in the Greater Georgetown area, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported.

It will also receive sludge from private waste disposal tankers, in a public/private partnership with the Guyana Water Inc., while promoting proper hygiene practices and reducing water borne diseases in the communities.

The sludge collected by tanker operators will be disposed of at the new facility and together with the sewage from the Tucville community will be pumped through a 200mm sewer line that was also recently constructed to link the Tucville facility to the Georgetown sewerage system at the junction of Brickdam and Winter Place.

The operation of the system is facilitated by two submersible pumps which can either work manually or automatically. One pump will be on work duty and the other will be on standby. The system is equipped with four automatic sensors, three of which will act as a start/stop switch and the fourth as a high level alarm.

The station consists of a complex of three main structures which include a pump house, sewage receiving chambers and operator’s hut.

The project site is also equipped with a state-of-the-art video surveillance system which monitors visitors and also the flow of traffic in and out of the compound, GINA said. This system will aid in efficient onsite security and  the system can also be monitored from the head office.

The contract for the construction of the Tucville Sewage Receiving Station was awarded to Correia and Correia Limited at a cost of $83M.
The Tucville Sewerage System was first constructed in 1970 and is comprised of a collection of gravity sewers that drain directly to the facility.
In light of the age of the system and lack of a proper maintenance programme during much of the 1980s and 1990s, GINA said, the sewerage system’s capacity to function efficiently diminished drastically, leading to the overflow of sewerage on roadways and drainage canals.

The administration subsequently signed a loan agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank for the rehabilitation of the Tucville sewerage system.