The Mosquito Research Control Unit and government officials broke ground on phase one of its new operations building on Red Gate Road Friday.
Construction on the building will start in the next two weeks with completion and occupancy of the 5,000-square-foot building slated for September.
Visitors inspect MRCU site plans. |
The facility will house the operations section for 25 staff that will be responsible for mosquito-borne disease prevention, ground fogging and larviciding, heavy equipment and swamp/field operations.
Out-buildings on the site will include pesticide storage, a vehicle washing bay and a mixing station to load fogging trucks.
MRCU Assistant Director Jennifer Ahearn said one thing they were excited about was that the drainage from the washing bay, mixing station and the pesticide storage would all go into an evaporation basin so there will not be any infiltration and pesticide contamination into the ground.
‘We are also going to have an on-site retention swell rather than a deep well for storm water,’ she said.
‘The retention swell will be a grass compression on the site with landscaping around it when it rains the water will collect in this and be evaporated by the sun,’ she said.
Phase two of the project will house the offices and lavatories, which will be about 6,000-square-feet. ‘These new facilities will enable us to expand the research and monitoring programme,’ said Ms Ahearn.
Breaking her political campaign drive to arrive that morning, Planning Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly congratulated MRCU staff and said she was deeply appreciative of the work they have done and are continuing to do.
For the past nine years most of MRCU staff has occupied the old hanger at the Owen Roberts Airport. The administration department section is located at the Marco Giglioli Building on North Sound Road. Before that, the MRCU used to be at the old George Town Hospital.
. Photos: Jewel Levy
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Visitors inspect MRCU site plans
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