Old pipes in the north to go, says Minister Griffith

Ageing water mains that currently serve the north will soon be a thing of the past, Minister in the Ministry of Water Resources Charles Griffith promised Tuesday as he told parliamentarians of a major mains repair project to help rid derelict and broken pipes in a water distribution network that began 160 years ago.

In the debate on the Government’s spending estimates for the 2021 fiscal year, Griffith said the old mains in the northern parishes had not only contributed to a flurry of burst pipes over the years but also discoloured water entering into homes.

Griffith said: “We understand that those mains were in place in some cases for more than 50, 60 years. So as a result of that, we have a situation where the mains are now pushing out brown water, and the fact that every day or every week we can see a burst in the constituency of St. Peter and St. Lucy more so, we believe that we need to take care of a major mains replacement in that particular area,”

“We are looking at approximately 40 kilometres of main replacement at [those] locations. We know for a fact that if we can do that, then we will regularize what is happening in the constituencies of St. Andrew, St. Peter and St. Lucy.”

The parish of St. John and surrounding areas that have been plagued for some time with water woes will also get relief in the near future, according to Griffith, who is also the MP for St John.

He told the House: “We are close to completing the work at Mount Pleasant where we are having two tanks being installed; obviously because of COVID we were impacted as far as delays are concerned, but in short order, we will have water going to not only the constituents of St. John but that particular eastern corner that I mentioned.

“I also need to speak to the honourable member of St. Peter [Colin Jordan] because he too is agitating on the behalf of constituents in relation to water outages and problems that are happening in the north of the island. To address that we are looking to put two desalination plants in the northern section of the country. One is supposed to go in St. Lucy at Connell Town, the other is supposed to go at Mullins [St. Peter].”
(SB)