Services offered through the High Court to the public will be further affected as officials seek to address the stench that recently began permeating the building, forcing last week’s closure.
In a press statement yesterday morning, Registrar Charlesworth Tabor said the building would be opened to the public from 8 am to noon until further notice, instead of the usual eight hours.
Tabor reported that he, along with Attorney General Justin Simon, Director of Public Works Lucine Hanley, a plumber, staff, an engineer within the Ministry of Public Works and other technicians met yesterday morning to discuss the situation before the decision to reduce working hours was taken.
Following the meeting that lasted some three and a half hours, Simon said the source of the stench has been identified and efforts are being made to quickly address it. He said it is an isolated problem from other issues of the past.
“The problem is the sewage. (Monday) I got hold of the gentleman who actually executed the sewage system or plumbing system at the High Court so he came. We’ve learnt there are two sewage systems and we were only aware of one, the one that was blocked all the time,” Simon said.
He said the sewage tank that Public Works knew about was being emptied frequently with the most recent cleaning being done on Saturday. However, the odour inside the building persisted.
“Apparently, what was being emptied was not the sewage tank but rather the inspection tank which is a much smaller tank and that only gives an indication the sewage tank was full. We have now found out the other sewage tank was sealed and they are going to be removing the concrete slabs that were sealed on top of it and some plumbing fixtures would be installed so as to allow those sewage tanks to be emptied,” the attorney general revealed.
In addition to the problems with sewage, Simon said the plumber also believes that the soakaway under the parking area is blocked.
A soakaway is an underground structure that disposes of unwanted water, most commonly storm water runoff, by dissipating it into the ground where it merges with the local groundwater.
The attorney general said several other problems with the High Court building were identified in recent months and the majority has been addressed.
He said the Managing Director of Antigua ERA Services Werner Meyer has been contracted to perform maintenance of the air conditioning units at the court, one of the perennial problems.
The shift in operation time has resulted in the High Court Criminal Assizes being moved to the St John’s Magistrates’ Court, where it will operate until further notice.
(Source http://www.antiguaobserver.com/?p=71161)
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