Minister of Works and Family Island Affairs, the Hon. Clay Sweeting was in Pinewood Gardens on Thursday where he provided an update on work to address the longstanding flooding issues in the community.

The minister previously announced that lift stations would be constructed at a cost of approximately $2.6 million. He said, “the contractor has advised me that the lift stations should be here on island by the end of August, but you’ll see some work start within the third week in August. Because you have to see some drainage infrastructure with piping, some trenching and all of that.  So we would anticipate twelve months after that we’ll have all three lift stations installed here.”

Along with Sappodilla Boulevard stations are also expected to be placed on Pigeon Plum and Joan’s Heights. Ministry of Works Assistant Engineer, Mario Smith told ZNS News the worst of the flooding occurs on Sappodilla Boulevard and that the stations will help to mitigate flooding.

According to Smith, five drainage wells are in place along Sappodilla Boulevard and between 50 and 60 wells in the entire community.  The new lift stations will have a catchment area.  Smith said, “that area will capture all the rainfall that accumulates within a certain zone. Once that takes place, the lift station then would… once water reaches a certain level within that catchment the lift station would then activate and pump that water out and discharge it away from the area that is flooding to an area that can receive that rainfall.”

Caribtech Digital Solutions designed the flow center system to locate and monitor the depth of wells. Lakindes Brown said 1500 wells have been located and mapping should be complete by the end of the year. “We’ve already cleared a few wells throughout New Providence, not just in Pinewood, but we’ve been in Stapledon, we’ve been in a couple of areas to ensure that we bring relief from flooding to the residents of those areas,” Brown said.