CAY BAY--Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure VROMI Egbert Doran signed a deed on behalf of government on Wednesday, May 20. With this act, land has now been allocated for the Cay Bay wastewater treatment plant.
The treatment plant is a joint project of the French St. Martin and Dutch St. Maarten governments and has been on the table for some time. The treatment plant aims to alleviate land-based pollution from contaminating Simpson Bay Lagoon and damaging its ecosystem.
“In compliance with the Convention for the Protection and Development of the Marine Environment of the Wider Caribbean Area, the government of St. Maarten has embarked on a multi-annual process to construct an island-wide sewage collection network.
“As part of the EU [European Union – Ed.] Territorial Cooperation programme, it was decided to construct a joint wastewater treatment plant for both the greater Cole Bay area and Marigot, which will be funded in part by the EU through the European Regional Development Fund,” said the VROMI Ministry in a press release on Wednesday.
According to VROMI, it was challenging to find a suitable location for the treatment plant in the Cole Bay and Simpson Bay areas because of unregulated urban development and the lack of spatial planning regulations in the past.
The wastewater treatment plant will be built next to utilities company GEBE’s power plant in Cay Bay.
“Studies are being carried out for the realisation of the wastewater treatment plant in accordance with EU regulations, such as an environmental impact assessment, geotechnical terrain study, and other technical assessments to determine the design specifications for the plant and sewage collection network,” said VROMI. The studies are expected to be completed by the end of 2020, after which construction can begin.
The wastewater treatment plant will be partly funded by the World Bank-administered St. Maarten Trust Fund.
