Very low rainfall and an increased number of equipment and infrastructural failures are two of the main causes of recent water shortages in some communities.
This was disclosed by Acting General Manager at the Barbados Water Authority, John Mwansa, at a press conference yesterday at the Wildey headquarters to address concerns about water outages in St. Peter, St. Joseph and St. Andrew.
Mr. Mwansa stated: ???Despite the fact that Barbados is a water scarce country, and through diligent development and management of its water resources, the BWA has over the years continued to provide adequate and continuous water supplies to most of its customers.???
However, he lamented that because of the generally reliable supply of water, some Barbadians may have been lured into a false sense of security and therefore had chosen not to adopt water conservation practices on household or commercial levels.
???The solutions to these problems are basically three fold: replacing and carrying out repairs to the ageing infrastructure, encouraging the reduction of water demand through practising water conservation, and augmenting the existing freshwater resources to meet the shortfall in pumping or production resulting from drops in water level,??? Mr. Mwansa said.
The Acting General Manager said unfortunately, he could not give a specific time when the districts of Golden Ridge, Castle Grant, Springs, New Castle, Rock Hall, Half Acre, Lamberts and Boscobel would once again have a steady water supply.
Other short term solutions to get fresh water to these districts include receiving assistance from the Barbados Fire Service and sanitising molasses trucks so that they could also be utilised to deliver fresh water. It was also revealed that the BWA would issue tenders for the construction of a new desalination plant in January and dig new wells for water collection.
Manager of Engineering, Charles Marville stated that there was no official cut off time for the water tankers at the BWA and that ???they are in operation for at least 16 hours each day to take water to these communities???.
jamal.hall@barbados.gov.bb