Residents happy for new system to ease water crisis
Published:Thursday | January 27, 2022 | 12:05 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
Water woes that have plagued the Watermount and Pedro communities of West Central St Catherine for years are expected to be resolved soon, with phase one of the project to pump water into the area on schedule to be completed by March, said Omar Francis, councillor caretaker for the Watermount Division.
Meanwhile, phase two, which will take water to the communities of Backpasture, Cudjoe Hill, Burke Hill, and Old Works is slated to begin shortly after, with the overall completion of the project expected by June.
The initiative was undertaken by Member of Parliament Dr Christopher Tufton in collaboration with the Rural Water Supply Limited (RWSL), which committed $150 million to the initiative.
However, RWSL’s Managing Director, Audley Thompson, told The Gleaner on Monday that the work is projected to go over budget because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on resource availability and material prices.
In 2020, work began on implementing an effective water system, which was lacking in some areas. A pumping system to gather water from the William Gully Dam has also been installed near Watermount Square.
The commodity, which has the potential to impact over 7,000 households, will be pumped into two 20,000-gallon concrete tanks hoisted by project workers. One is located in the Old Works area, and the other in Pedro, where the water will be gravity-fed into the Watermount neighbourhood.
A 30,000-gallon concrete tank with a 10,000-gallon reserve was also installed in the community to help residents overcome water shortages during drought periods.
The previous system only served a limited portion of the area, said Thompson.
Francis explained that this was a necessary step to take, as “when you have the water coming straight to the system and go straight to the homes, it doesn’t help at all because it means, therefore, that once water goes down, it goes down all the time”.
Despite the fact that the water system has not yet been fully constructed to flow into the residents’ pipes, Hyacinth Campbell, a member of the community for over 15 years, is pleased to see these much-needed improvements being made.
She informed The Gleaner that she has lived in the community for many years with low water pressures, having to go days without the commodity during lock-offs.
“But now that there is a change, we happy for it,” she said.
Watermount Primary School Principal Karlene Thomas-Laing lamented that in the past, the water issue had a significant impact on the school, where some days the institution had to close for half a day as there was no water.
She added that on other days, she would have to ask some of the boys in the neighbourhood to transport water from other locations on to the compound.
To address the irregular water supply, the school has had to bear the cost of purchasing nine water tanks that have alleviated the issue to some degree.
“There were days when parents would call and say, ‘Miss, I can’t send the child to school because the uniform is not clean, I don’t have any water’, or the child might be missing out on lessons because, ‘Miss, I had to go to the river this morning to get water,’” said Thomas-Laing.
Although the school may not be one of the first beneficiaries of the water improvement project, said Thomas-Laing, she is confident that it will help parents to send the children to school.
“If we can reach them, we can teach them. If they are here, we can teach them, [but] when they are at home and they don’t have water, or the parent can’t pick the chicken to sell ... all the issues become connected,” she said, as the lack of water affects the farming community’s livelihood.
“[But] I see where the water project is going to improve the lives of community members,” she added.