The division is currently outsourcing its needs on an inefficient rental basis, according to deputy director Bruce Megarr.
He said they have submitted a $2.8 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding proposal for the purchase of the equipment.
The division needs a vactor truck, a boom truck, a dump truck, a ditch wich/track excavator, a low boy flat bed trailer and a backhoe
“Procurement of these needed pieces of equipment would significantly assist CUC to protect the public’s health and the environment,” Megarr said.
Under the federal stipulated orders, he added, CUC must improve its water system infrastructure and develop a wastewater collection and a cleanup and maintenance program for its conveyance system.
Megarr said whenever a problem occurs in the sewer system, they have to wait for the availability of heavy equipment rental trucks before they can address the problem.
By the time the equipment is available, he said the sewage has already overflowed onto the streets in the neighborhood, and into the island’s groundwater, “spreading contamination and seriously endangering public health.”
He said a backhoe is used in excavating underground sewer pipes and is necessary whenever they suspect pipeline leaks or pipe collapse.
Without a tracked excavator, he said CUC is subject to contracting out all new construction activities and waterline replacement projects.
Moreover, the absence of a vactor truck and a boom truck makes it impossible to perform regular routine cleaning of the island’s sewerlines and pump stations, he added.
Megarr said standard maintenance cleaning land monitoring could allow engineers to anticipate, minimize and avoid occurrences of sewer clogs and unnecessary downtimes of the island’s sewerage pump stations.
“Pump stations downtimes are a serious contributing cause of sewage overflows,” he said.
But the water and wastewater division does not have its own dump truck to haul stockpiles of treatment plant sewage sludge to the island’s sanitary landfill in a timely manner, he added.
At present, the sludge coming form the two wastewater treatment plants are being stockpiled and stored on site at each plant, he said.
CUC is dependent on the availability of a rental truck to haul and dispose the sludge to the sanitary landfill, he added.
