Roseau, 2 February 2022 – The Dominica Water and Sewerage Company Ltd. (DOWASCO) in collaboration with Caribbean Sanitation with Nature (CARIBSAN) is preparing to undertake a project to organically treat wastewater in Dominica.

CARIBSAN is a wastewater management project which aims to promote Constructed Wetland (CW) technology to treat wastewater in tropical environments. The technology promotes plant-based wastewater treatmentthroughout the Caribbean. 

Recently, DOWASCO welcomed a team of CARIBSAN partners from Martinique to Dominica to begin preparation works for the construction of at least one such project here in Dominica.  Over the two days (January 24 and 25), consultations were held to discuss the implementation of an action plan for the project. There were also site visits to potential locations for possible implementation   

Other stakeholders including the Division of Forestry and the Environmental Health Unit were also engaged in the process.

The impact of wastewater is an environmental emergency in the Caribbean where large populations live near coastal areas with insufficient sanitation infrastructures resulting in pollution of the environment.

Constructed wetlands used in the French West Indies for some time now utilizing local plants such as the Heliconia Psittacorum (commonly known as “birds of paradise”) have proven to be effective for several years. This nature-based technology has the advantage of being efficient, environmentally friendly, simpler, and cheaper to manage in comparison to a conventional system and is also climate resistant.

DOWASCO considers the use of planted filters to be a viable wastewater treatment technique for Dominica, as it can assist in achieving the objective of building new treatment plants and upgrading the existing ones. Once the initial project is successful this technique will be scaled up and replicated in other areas of Dominica.