Guilsborough residents relying on local reservoir for water
Published:Monday | February 20, 2023 | 12:14 AM
WESTERN BUREAU:
Every few days, residents of Guilsborough district in St James are forced to make the two-mile trip to a reservoir located in an upper section of the community to fetch water for domestic use.
The reservoir is located on a resident’s property between the Guilsborough main crossing and the nearby district of Industry.
With handcarts or pickups filled with five-gallon containers and bottles to replenish supplies, they venture out to make use of a hose – set up with the property owner’s consent – which runs partway down a small hill to the roadside where they gather with their empty vessels.
Last week, The Sunday Gleaner was on hand to witness one such trip, where neighbours Patricia Rose and Eve Lawrence, along with a few other members of the community, had 24 containers in the back of a van and several more on a handcart ready to be filled.
Pausing briefly in her laborious effort of manning the hose, Rose noted that anyone who does not use the reservoir has to spend roughly $7,000 to fill each 1,000-gallon tank on their premises.
“We have to use the water to wash and cook, so at least three times for the week we come here to the reservoir, and sometimes we have to get somebody to use a handcart to carry the drums with water. Otherwise, we buy water from the water truck and full up our tank, and my mother has two tanks, so that’s $14,000,” Rose explained.
“The yellow tank is up the road, where the authorities said they would put water in it, but that nuh good, and it get rusty and abandoned. We want pipeline, not a tank,” Rose added resolutely.
She was referring to a rusted tank a few minutes’ drive from the reservoir, which had been installed in 2020 to serve the community’s water needs. However, the tank has gone unused for so long that it has become unfit for any kind of water storage.
Lawrence told The Sunday Gleaner that Member of Parliament Edmund Bartlett, in whose St James East Central constituency Guilsborough is located, had arranged for the installation of the tank nearly three years ago.
“The yellow tank up the top of the hill, the member of parliament had said he would put it up there and give us the water, but from they parked it up there, they don’t come back. They have been making promises to us about the water for about three years now,” said Lawrence.
She recalled her childhood days when water could be accessed much closer to the community square.
“Years ago, we had the water system from mi a pickney, and mi a 59 years old now. We used to go down the road and catch water, when water used to be down the road, but from the time they dug up the pipe, people suffer for water in this area,” Lawrence continued. “Going straight down to the crossroad, there’s no water. For most of the people down that side, there’s a river down there, and they pump water from the river for washing.”
While Rose and Lawrence were relating the residents’ experience, Rose’s daughter, Shamara Allen, began pushing a cart with several empty five-gallon containers up the hill towards the reservoir. It was not an easy feat and she had to seek assistance from a friend to push the cart.
“Mi haffi take mi pump. Mi asthmatic,” Allen briefly explained to The Sunday Gleaner, before continuing her herculean effort up the hill, following which she went to the yard where the reservoir is located, returning with several bottles.
Guilsborough is one of three communities in the Somerton division, along with Tambala and Goodwill, in which water shops have been installed by the St James Municipal Corporation. The water shops consist of one or two 1,000-gallon tanks, which are strategically located in each community. Despite the name, there is no fee for filling containers.
Asked about the water shop which Somerton division Councillor Mark McGann had arranged to have placed in their area, Rose was adamant that it would have been better if a direct water line had been installed instead.
“It better if him run di pipe than give tank, because if you give a tank, dem nuh full it up monthly, and two tanks can’t serve one community,” she reasoned.
Lawrence agreed, stating that the tank’s capacity is not enough to meet the needs of their community.
“Down so dem did set up a tank, and the same day dem full it, the same day it done. One time, one pipe did run from the crossroad to another part of Guilsborough, and sometime we would get up at 4 a.m. with the carts and the drums in it, or we would go to Somerton and push the cart up the hill with two drums on the cart,” Lawrence reminisced.
“Now, I get to understand that dem deh build a reservoir up a Cedar Hill to run water and maintain here,” Lawrence added, referencing an ongoing construction project to build a 300,000-gallon water tank that will source water from a pumping station in Cedar Hill to supply Somerton, Guilsborough, and other communities to include those as far away as Goodwill and Irwin Heights. “We just haffi hope and pray, because if they find a source for us to get water, mi nuh mind fi pay water bill.”
Ground was broken for the creation of the $300-million Cedar Hill tank in 2020. It is expected to be connected to wells in the Canaan community near Dumfries, in order to create a wider water network for supplying the commodity.
When contacted by The Sunday Gleaner, McGann acknowledged the ongoing frustrations of the residents, but gave assurance that the water issues would soon be rectified with the completion of the Cedar Hill project.
“It is not the most ideal of situations, but there is a promise of better days soon. While not the most efficient, the St James Municipal Corporation trucks water to these communities,” said McGann. “The National Water Commission also has a system that supplies water to their accounted customers. The mega-water project [at Cedar Hill] is about 60 per cent complete, and that will ease the discontent we are currently facing.”