Green Street residents beg for a pipline

Nedburn Thaffe, Gleaner Writer

MANDEVILLE, Manchester:

GREEN STREET in Manchester is a community located a little over a mile from the parish capital Mandeville. However, despite its proximity to the commercial hub and its diverse population, accessing tap water has been an uphill task for the residents from time immemorial.

Residents of this community long for the day when they will have the privilege of turning on their taps to harness running water.

But until that time comes, many have been left with little choice other than to purchase this vital commodity at a cost that is crippling to some.

For persons like Verland Richards - a peasant farmer and father of seven school-age children - purchasing water for daily use is an option that would prove too costly. Sourcing water from a neighbouring community to fill his containers has become part of his daily chores.

"Fi buy the truck water it would cost me couple thousand dollars well. Me can't afford that, man. Di pikney dem use water every second. If you full even 10 drums, that can't last me one week, so just imagine if me did have to purchase it," the farmer explained.

Challenge

A decades-old water catchment that has been chiselled into the ground is what Richards has been using over the years to store rainwater for farming and other household use. These days, nature has been unkind to him.

"Because it's the dry season now, the little trickling weh we get around here every now and again is not enough to full up the catchment, so a over deh so me have to go for water to do every little thing," Richards said, pointing to the neighbouring Cedar Grove community.

Evadney Walters, a senior citizen in the community, knows too well the challenge plaguing the community over the years. Although having to deal with the lack of running water in the community all her life, she said the situation has reached boiling point.

"It terrible over yah, man!" she said, adding that the dry period the community is now experiencing has made matters worse.

"Sometime we can hardly find water to cook or even flush toilet. Many times the children have to stay home from school or even go to bed dirty because we don't have no water for them to bathe," the senior citizen said.

Walters said in years gone by, Green Street residents were assisted by the Alpart Bauxite company, which would truck water to the community residents free of cost. Now, with the closure of the company, most residents have invested in plastic tanks. She said the cost of having these tanks filled ranges from $15,000 to $30,000.

"The water that we have now we get from Mayday community because we cannot afford that kind of money," Walters said.

"It nuh cost we more than the $500 that we use to pay the truck man. To make it last, we have to pinch it," the resident said.

She, too, is longing for the day when a pipeline will run through the community.

"A years we a suffer with this. We can't see why other communities have water and in this day and age we still going through this problem," she said, warning that residents are planning to take their frustrations to the streets if something is not done to tackle the issue.

Raymond Lloyd, a taxi operator who has been living in the area since he was a boy, said that the situation had been a thorny one for residents over the years.

"From ever since, the people of Green Street a suffer from a lack of water. Back in the day, we use to have to travel with donkey and cut through all track go all the way to Knockpatrick to get some water.

"The only thing weh different now is that most residents have their black tank, so when them buy the water, it is able to last longer," Lloyd said.

'A years we a suffer with this. We can't see why other communities have water and in this day and age we still going through this problem.'

Photos by Nedburn Thaffe