the lack of a distribution network of sewage water to replace the collapsed one and two Treatment plants half built, together with the accumulation of solid waste, constitutes the main unsanitary problem in Villa Liberación and surrounding sectors that impacts the lives of more than 200,000 people.
Both Treatment plants of sewage water started by the governments of Hipólito Mejía (2000-2004) and Leonel Fernández (2008-2012) in the Villa Liberación sector, Santo Domingo Este, are still not working because they were never finished.
Two “white elephants” that a population of 7,000 families from nearby neighborhoods cannot use and that have become the focus of contamination for residents of Villa Liberación. But other sectors also benefit such as El Almirante, IV stage, El Tamarindo, the Ana Teresa Balaguer residential area. Both plants were designed to benefit a population of more than 200,000 people and surrounding areas where there has been an outbreak of a disease suspected of being cholera, which has left at least five people dead.
In the Colina del Oriente II neighborhood, there are ruins of what was to be the plant to treat sanitary waste from part of the sector. Old decanters where liquids must have been stored, are empty spaces where liana branches climb on all sides until turning the place into a platform of green leaves.
The pipe that should have been discharged in the place has been covered for years and what was done was to channel a pipe through the facilities and the fecal matter, urine and other liquids were discharged directly into the Ozama River, without any type of treatment.
Leonardo López is the president of the Association of Neighborhood Councils of Colina Oriental and says that the plant began to be built during the government of former President Hipólito Mejía, but it was never finished.
The plant only worked halfway for about three years and since then some engineers received for a while quantifications to finish it, but the works did not advance until the project was totally abandoned, even the military who took care of the work were withdrawn.
Only the masonry works of the lagoon and the building where the caretakers lived remain. Doors, ironwork, furniture, grilles and the entire waste treatment system installed until then were stolen.
“The pipe is clogged every 20 meters, cholera does not affect those of Villa Liberación, it also affects Tamarindo, El Almirante, Sabana Perdida, Los Mina and even reaches the Caribbean Sea,” says the community leader.
He says that just a year ago the director of the Santo Domingo Aqueduct and Sewerage Corporation (Caasd) Felipe Subervi (Fellito) visited the area and ordered the work of the two Treatment plantsbut everything has remained the same with the aggravating circumstance that there is a high school next to the place.
The other plant:
A neighboring neighborhood, known as El Manguito and belonging to Villa Liberación itself, also has a treatment plant that began to be built during the government of former President Leonel Fernández (2008-2012), but was not finished either.
It has five decanters and unlike the previous one, here there are liquids stored, but not treated. The bad smell is unbearable and in some parts a green layer covers the place and in others even dead dogs rot little by little in the stagnant waters.
It is a strong reinforced concrete structure located on the outskirts of El Manguito, but the bad smell invades the entire area, especially when it rains and the rains remove the pestilential liquids.
the CAASD
The director of the CAASD, Felipe Subervi reported that, of the two plants in Villa Liberación, he only knows the one in the Colina del Oriente II sector, which was built by former President Hipólito Mejía and promised to investigate the one in El Manguito.
He confirmed what was explained by residents that the structure was dismantled and abandoned for many years.
“What we are in this process is doing a survey, we have a contractor to finish the plant, but in the end we do nothing to please the community if it does not have networks.”
He reported that a CAASD contractor is doing the survey to design a new network system and make a complete intervention of the plant, at least the one in the Colina Oriental II neighborhood, while investigating the situation of the other.
“The president is very focused on that and he asked us for a budget, for this year to include it in the complementary one, we want to do a good job, to intervene we need to do a survey because what we started until we finished it, we didn’t get out.”
