WILLEMSTAD - The new hospital, Curaçao Medical Center (CMC), is no longer connected to the sewerage in Otrobanda. As a result, the wastewater enters the sea without treatment.
It is not illegal to dump (chemical) wastewater into the sea. Curaçao has no possibility to purify this. The new hospital was previously able to dispose of its domestic wastewater in the public sewer. Although this had to be investigated to see if this would not damage the Klein Hofje water treatment plant.
The Public Works Department (DOW) has since carried out this test and subsequently disconnected the new hospital from the sewer system. The measurements have shown that domestic wastewater contains too high concentrations of chlorine and salt. Klein Hofje cannot process this wastewater because the purification process is carried out by bacteria and these bacteria die due to a too high concentration of salt or chemical products.
Dito Garmers, Director of Properties at the CMC, explains: "On the east side of the hospital, wastewater is currently being transported via trucks." And those trucks, therefore, transport the polluted water to Shut, a place that the government has designated to discharge wastewater into the sea. It is located on the north coast, close to Hato airport.
Garmers does say that they are still in discussion with DOW about the composition of the domestic wastewater. “We are working together on a structural solution. As long as we do not know what exactly we are allowed to discharge into the public sewer system, we cannot purify the wastewater.”
Whether there are other hazardous waste substances in the water is currently unknown. “We have a policy that hazardous waste is disposed of in a different way, that does not end up in the public sewer system. So, people do not have to worry about, for example, radioactive waste being in the water,” says Garmers. But what else is in the water must further be revealed after the results of the DOW research.
The hospital is currently investigating to get treatment plants to purify its own wastewater, so that it can be used in the public sewer system.