US$209m water programme for northwestern parishes
Published:Saturday | September 2, 2023 | 12:09 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
PRIME MINISTER Andrew Holness has announced that several communities across Jamaica’s northwestern parishes are set to benefit from a US$209-million (J$32.2-billion) water-reliability programme.
The project will improve supplies for residents of St James, Trelawny and Hanover.
Holness made the announcement on Thursday at a town hall on housing and land at the Harmony Beach Park in Montego Bay, St James.
He did not give a timeline for the implementation of the project.
“I am saying this now for the people of St James, who have been complaining, and your members of parliament have been bringing to us the situation in Montego Bay, where the main pipelines have collapsed, and so you don’t have in some of the communities a reliable water supply. We have decided that we are going to find US$209 million to develop a programme – the Northwestern Parishes Reliability and Service Improvement Project,” said Holness.
“We are going to do the Martha Brae and Great River water treatment plants expansion; we are going to do water transmission main replacement, plus the Negril pipeline replacement from Rusea’s High School to Orange Bay and Logwood, and the Montego Bay pipeline replacement from the Martha Brae water treatment plant to the Terminal storage tank,” Holness added.
Water infrastructure needs renewal
Other water supply systems which are slated to benefit from this project include the systems in Falmouth, Trelawny, and Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland. There will also be development of potable water treatment plants in Cambridge, St James, and sections of Manchester.
Holness noted that Jamaica’s water infrastructure is in desperate need of renewal, pointing to Tuesday’s rupture of a 127-year-old water main under New York’s Times Square in the United States as an example of what could happen to similarly old water infrastructure.
In that incident, the ruptured water main flooded New York City’s midtown streets and a subway station.
“In New York, a water main broke and it flooded Times Square. You know how old that water main was? About 110 years old, or something like that. The point I am making to you is that Jamaica’s water infrastructure was mostly laid in the 1950s and 1960s, some in the 1970s,” said Holness.
“Much of it is old and creaking, or rather, old and leaking. Asbestos pipes were used during that time as well, and especially for this parish,” Holness added.
He said that the challenge is how to make the water potable and move it from the sources to towns and communities.
In August, Senator Matthew Samuda, the minister with responsibility for water, announced that several communities in St James East Central could look forward to full water supply by the end of September.