#BTEditorial – Pit toilet eradication means upgraded water supply

Last week in the House of Assembly, Prime Minister Mia Mottley declared that she wanted to see all pit toilets in Barbados eradicated by the year 2027. She noted that the issue surfaced during the St George North by-election held earlier this month, and asked the pertinent question: “How does a country reach 54 years and still have 4 000-odd pit toilets on its landscape? I say to you, that the time has come for us to treat this as a special project.”

Some 25 years ago, when the Rural Development Commission (RDC) was established as a statutory board and came under the auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture – which was subtitled “and Rural Development” –, its stated mandates included bringing street lamps to all rural communities and eradicating pit toilets. As a matter of fact, when the RDC embarked on home construction or renovation projects, they replaced any pit toilets they found with water-borne facilities.

We are not certain how many such facilities existed back in the mid-1990s. But the RDC and its ‘sister’, the Urban Development Commission (UDC), have worked on many a house since then, so why is the number of pit latrines in existence still so high? In all honesty, the country’s population has grown since then and there are probably more illegal settlements where people do not necessarily have a water supply.

The Prime Minister had said during her contribution in Parliament: “In many instances, what has been disturbing to me is that the progress made in the past has literally been reversed in the last decade. We know it happens in every constituency, but I have seen far more of them this time around in Government than the last time we were there.”

“The last time we were there, most of the pit toilets related to houses that had them for decades. What we are now seeing is pit toilets that have come about in the last decade or so, and that is what is disturbing and that is what has caused me to know that this Government cannot ignore it, because if we ignore it what we are going to see is a continued increase rather than a reduction in numbers,” she added.

In terms of the illegal settlements, especially those on the highly sensitive Zone One water tables where people are not supposed to construct homes, newly elected Member of Parliament for St George North Toni Moore alluded to the potential health hazards people can experience with an inadequate water supply.

She said: “In the realm of public safety, consideration should be given to where people are located in Zone One areas, and therefore Government must address these concerns when coming up with housing solutions. I speak specifically to the natural consequence that people will end up using pit toilets, because in a Zone One area there are implications of water contamination and sewage issues that will prohibit people from having the basic amenities many of us are able to enjoy.”

Before we embark on this “eradication project” over the next seven years, we must ask where are these 4 000 pit toilets located? Are the houses in question isolated properties or is it a case where an entire district still has these pit latrines? In the case of the latter, do these districts have a water supply, or do the residents rely on water tanks, a standpipe, or a visit from a Barbados Water Authority tanker?

The Prime Minister said the Government has budgeted $5 million to the RDC and $7.5 million to the UDC for this exercise. Where does the Barbados Water Authority fit in? If it is a case where the house has no water supply, or indeed a community, then the BWA should be brought in to build new connections to these areas – either by tapping into neighbouring mains (and reinforcing them in the process, naturally) or rediscovering and, if possible, reopening old wells from nearby plantations, particularly in the rural corridor. This could, however, be problematic in the Zone One areas or if the houses were built illegally.

Another option they can consider is mandating that the owners of properties with pit toilets change them within a particular time, but only in a case where they have running water at the residence. They should also set themselves a target to have a certain amount completed within a year in the first instance, until the project is finished and, if any new ones surface over that time, whoever is responsible, particularly if it is an illegally constructed building, should be prosecuted.

All in all, if the Government can guarantee a better water supply for all Barbadians, especially those in the areas where water is extremely scarce, by doing the necessary infrastructural work on the water supply chain then we can achieve this objective.