Water levels, patience, run low in St Joseph

Even as water tankers refill community tanks periodically in St Joseph, its residents say they are fed up with perennial water shortages that have only worsened since last week’s volcanic ashfall.

The frustrated residents told Barbados TODAY that the situation seems to currently be the worst it has been in a long time, as they too are suffering from volcanic ashfall. They said due to limited access to water, and dry taps, it has been difficult for them to properly get the ash from their properties.

Many householders said that what is considered a proper bath is nothing but a dream for those who have grown tired of feeling sweat and dust on their skins.

Rosemary Downes of Lammings said the last time she saw water running from her tap was between 5 and 6 a.m. on Thursday. Downes lamented that one hour of water from the taps is not enough time to get showers and household chores done.

She said: “We shouldn’t get up this morning without water. If you are saying bathe once a day and there ain’t none at all to bathe with then it ain’t make no sense. Every time you rub your hand on your neck you could feel the dust on you. Every vehicle that passes here, you could see the dust turn up.”

In the past, water shortages were blamed on the demands of the Andrews Sugar Factory, she said. But the factory has been out of commission for many years now and Downes said the situation was becoming particularly unbearable for residents who need proper access for water to care for the sick.

Downes told Barbados TODAY: “Even if somebody says bathe once a day you still got to eat. So when you eat, you have to buy disposable dishes, but you can’t cook in disposables. You still got to cook in the saucepans. I think the condition up here is really bad and for years they were saying the same thing and I think that we are getting looked over all the time and it’s really wrong to the people in Lammings. The toilet ain’t even hollering to say that you will get something”.

Farmer Roland Gill, a Lammings resident, declared he was tired of the lack of access to water. He said while they have been facing this challenge for many years, the situation has worsened significantly since December when they have only been getting water from their taps periodically and for only one to two hours in the morning at extremely low pressure.

Gill said his biggest difficulty as a farmer is not being able to wet his crops.

He said: “This is years now the farmers asking the Government to give us water catchments in the area so we wouldn’t have to depend on the water from the pipelines to wet the plants. We lost crops through the drought and lack of water. We ain’t really had any water for the whole week. My plants still got on the ash. This is two weeks now that the water is running lower than before. You can’t even get a proper bath then.”

At Yearwood Road, Sugar Hill, Joan Clarke, who said she was forced to invest in a water tank after the situation became unbearable for her household, told Barbados TODAY that she was struggling to understand why residents were still getting high water bills though there is hardly any water coming from their taps. Clarke’s own water bill was over $900.

She said: “You go and pay a little $100 and $200, and the bill is still high. The bill is always high although the pipe is always off and I don’t know why. The guy went here and checked already and he said there isn’t no leakage, so it must be because the water is on and off all the time. I would love to see we getting water in St Joseph every day, through the pipe like everybody else. Don’t favour one side of the island and leave out the rest, it is not nice.”

In Chimborazo, a resident said that it was not easy to “bathe properly” or flush toilets. The resident also complained that he was tired of seeing a water bill coming to his home and indicated that he believes St Joseph residents who are not getting water from their taps should have their bills waived.

The complaints were the same at Parks Road, St Joseph where Barbados TODAY spotted a Barbados Defence Force water tanker which was called out to assist the Barbados Water Authority’s fleet.

St Joseph MP, Attorney General Dale Marshall said Government has mobilized resources to assist constituents and that he has been working around the clock to find solutions so that residents would have access to some water.

He told Barbados TODAY: “I am completely empathetic with my constituents, their pain is real. The Barbados Water Authority is being pressured and pressed by me 1000 times per day to get their water tankers out to try to make sure that every single community in my constituency is served. It has not been easy because the smaller water will only hold just around 1200 gallons and so when one of those tankers fills up the community tanks that hold 1,100 or 1,200 gallons it is empty.

“We even brought out the Barbados Defence Force water tanker which ordinarily would not be pressed into service but the situation is so bad that we had to draw on that as well. The Prime Minister has determined that she is going to get personally involved in this because some of the issues at BWA are financial. She has given an instruction that the BWA has to immediately purchase additional tankers. They are not going to be in Barbados in a day or two but we are in the middle of a crisis and this situation is going to press for a little while longer.”

Marshall, like many officials and residents, is pinning his hopes on the BWA’s 16-million-dollar ‘Vineyard’ pipeline to pump an additional two million gallons of water per day to the Golden Ridge Reservoir which is key to the supply of water to most of St Joseph.

“And I am very optimistic that this project when completed will take a significant bite out of tremendous suffering that my constituents are experiencing,” Marshall said. “The curious thing is that now it is more than just St Joseph. Three, four years ago it was largely St Joseph and the rest of Barbados seemed to have paid us little attention, but now it has started to affect them as well. I think it is obvious that part of our immediate challenge has been the tremendous drain of the available water because people are trying to wash down and that has obviously made a bad situation worse.”

BWA Marketing and Communications Manager Yvette Harris-Griffith told Barbados TODAY that parts of St John, St Lucy, St Peter, St Andrew. and St Joseph, continue to be affected by low reservoir levels which are being exacerbated by the sharp increase in water usage as a result of the ash fall over the last weekend.

“Currently the BWA has a fleet of nine water tankers on the road,” said Harris-Griffith. “Our water tanker crews are working assiduously to deliver water to all the affected areas in the shortest possible time. The BWA apologizes for the inconvenience caused.”
(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)