Earth Today | Water conservation a must for St Bess – JN Foundation

RESIDENTS OF St Elizabeth were recently reminded of the need to get on board with water conservation, given the parish’s particular vulnerability to droughts.

“St. Elizabeth is considered to be the breadbasket parish, so it is imperative that the parish practise water conservation measures,” noted Omar Wright, lead for environment and community development at the JN Foundation, which has been on a mission to promote and enable conservation of the precious resource.

He made the appeal while interacting with students and residents of the parish during an exhibition mounted at the St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) in observation of World Water Day recently.

The exhibition was organised by the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation in collaboration with its agencies and stakeholders. The day was observed under the theme,‘Accelerating Change – Water, Changing Behaviour and Lives’.

The situation in St Elizabeth, Wright said, is an urgent reminder that water is indeed precious and must be conserved and managed sustainably to ensure its availability for generations to come.

MAJOR PROJECTS

Floyd Green, minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister and member of parliament for St Elizabeth South Western, who spoke at the event, said the Government is undertaking two major projects to improve the water supply to the parish.

These, he noted, include the Essex Valley irrigation system that will serve South St Elizabeth and parts of Manchester. The second major project, Green noted, will pull water from the Black River for irrigation purposes in St Elizabeth and will benefit farmers.

“I want to say to all my farmers in South St Elizabeth that on this World Water Day, the Government is going to work to ensure that you have all the water you need to do your farming,” he stated.

Among other things, Green said that 21 projects valued at $2.5 billion have been earmarked to bring water supply across Jamaica. Four of those projects are to be implemented in St Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, students and teachers at STETHS expressed appreciation for the information out of the exhibition. Teacher Keisha Francis Forbes was especially fascinated by JN Foundation’s display, which demonstrated how persons can configure their homes with a guttering system to harvest rainwater.

“It is good to see water being harvested [as depicted by the display]. Growing up as a little girl, that is how we used to harvest water, but I realised as I got older and moved to a new community that not much of this harvesting is being done any more,” she observed.

Francis Forbes added that persons should be motivated to set up such systems by the pressing reality of a changing climate which threatens longer, more severe droughts, among other extreme events.

Grade eight student, Nicola Moodle, who expressed frustration with the frequent water lock-offs, said she now has a greater appreciation for water conservation.

“Water is life and it is important that we conserve it,” she said.