Government officials yesterday moved to give an assurance that there is no major cause for concern over a possible contamination of the water table after it was revealed that there were leaky gasoline holding tanks at a local service station.
The Minister of Works and Utilities Bradley Roberts said recently that the gas leaks had saturated much of the Baillou Hill and Robinson Road areas and had even impacted crucial road works that were underway.
He reported that if the situation is not handled properly, a catastrophe could result.
Minister Roberts said that officials initially learnt of the contamination during the initial stages of the Harrold Road Improvement project, as a result of certain environmental procedures that had to be carried out
“The studies that were carried out indicated that there is some contamination,” Minister Roberts said. “Now how extensive it is, we don’t know but as they continue the road excavation there is a lot of work because they have to remove the contaminated fill from that area because you would not want there to be a boom in the area. When they start to dig in the area they have to be very careful.”
According to Minister Roberts, that leak prompted officials to take action, and the service station was subsequently shut down until the problem was rectified.
He said that in the past there has also been seepage from other service stations in the area, leading to officials having to replace the underground holding tanks to prevent any future contamination.
“This Ministry has heated up the pace so to speak, in carrying out regular inspections of those service stations to make sure that, that sort of thing is minimized in the future,” Minister Roberts said. “The technology has also changed with regard to the type of tanks that are used to hold gasoline and diesel underground so that chances of there being seepage is being minimized every time a new service station is opened or existing one is renovated.”
The area greatly affected by the possible contamination of the water table is the Yellow Elder subdivision, according to Minister Roberts. But, he said, the area has been determined to be a safe one.
“The residents in the area, particularly Yellow Elder have a special system. There are parts of yellow elder that use two systems. They use brackish water for flushing and then they us the other water for other purposes,” Minister Roberts said. ” As far as Yellow Elder is concerned they are reasonably secure. But we will know as excavations are carried out, the extent of the contamination that’s underground in that area there.”
Permanent Secretary in the Department of Environmental Health, Ron Pinder yesterday confirmed that there have been reported cases and evidence of contamination from leakages of petroleum products from a number of service stations in the area.
He said that there must be a thorough investigation that would determine the magnitude of the problem.
“The Department of Environmental Health Services is aware and we are investigating,” Mr. Pinder said. “There is a working committee being formed to address the issue, to investigate and make appropriate recommendations [on dealing with the issue].”
While not giving a time frame on when the committee is expected to complete those investigations, Mr. Pinder said that once the committee is done, the public would be notified of its findings and the course of action that the government will take in resolving the matter.
By: Stephen Gay, The Bahama Journal
