Soapberry US$100m upgrade to double capacity, unlock real estate growth

The Government expects to divest the Soapberry Wastewater Treatment Plant this year as part of plans to double its capacity to meet infrastructure needs for increased housing developments.

“We will go to market this year to divest the Soapberry treatment plant,” Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, Matthew Samuda, said on Thursday. “That divestment will include an expansion, a full doubling of the Soapberry capacity.”

Samuda was speaking at the Realtors Association of Jamaica’s Leaders in Real Estate breakfast at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston. Two years earlier, he had also urged realtors to support the divestment of Soapberry. It now appears that the Government will formalise the process.

He explained that upgrading Soapberry, the country’s largest sewage treatment facility, will enable real estate development along Jamaica’s south coast from Clarendon to St Thomas, where some 1.8 million of the country’s 2.7 million people reside.

The Government wants a private entity to invest between US$100 million and US$150 million to double the plant’s capacity to 150,000 cubic metres per day, according to divestment information from the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), which manages government asset divestments.

“The project will provide potential and opportunities for the recycling of effluent and the development of renewable energy, i.e. solar and wind, which will result in the environmental sustainability and resilience of the constructed facility,” the DBJ noted on its website.

20-YEAR PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

The divestment is part of a 20-year public-private partnership. Soapberry currently treats 75,000 cubic metres per day of wastewater flows from sections of Portmore in St Catherine, Kingston, and St Andrew (KSA). The DBJ says the National Water Commission wants to expand capacity to 150,000 cubic metres per day to manage projected increases in wastewater flows from the KSA.

Samuda added that the upgrade would move Soapberry from a secondary to tertiary treatment facility seen as critical to protecting the Kingston Harbour.

“The Kingston Harbour can only truly be blue with tertiary treatment at the Soapberry treatment plant. So it has a significant environmental benefit, but it also truly unlocks between Spanish Town to Morant Bay genuine capacity for real estate development,” the Minister said.

Samuda also reiterated plans to address Kingston’s long-term water challenges. These include completing the Rio Cobre Water Treatment Plant in Content, St Catherine, which is expected to provide an additional 15 million gallons of water daily to some 600,000 residents in Kingston and St Andrew; installing a new line from Ferry in St Catherine to Cooper’s Hill in St Andrew; and finalising the transaction design for the new Hermitage Dam.

“Kingston and St Andrew, I’m prepared to say, will be water resilient and drought resistant in 18 months,” Samuda said.

luke.douglas@gleanerjm.com