BWA explains decision to shut down water system

 General Manager of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) Keithroy Halliday has been clearing the air on the company’s decision to shut down the water system island-wide at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday ahead of the passage of Category four Hurricane Beryl.

He explained the move was a precaution to protect critical infrastructure amid harsh criticism from the public for the short notice.
“I think it’s important that I explain what exactly has happened… Let me first of all start with an apology for the late notification that went out concerning the shutdown of pumping systems. That is regrettable, and again, I apologize on behalf of the Barbados Water Authority.
“We have been fully engaged in doing several things. Any time there is a system that threatens Barbados, and particularly where the severity is considered or we think that the severity will be high, we take several steps to protect our assets, certainly at the authority, and the assets extend to our pumping stations and the specific electrical and circuitry components that we have within those facilities,” he said.
Halliday said it takes three hours or more for the BWA’s systems to fully shut down.

“Each breaker at every system and every station has to be turned off manually. While we have surge arresters and a number of protective mechanisms on our electrical circuitry, we found from experience that the best thing for us to do is to shut down manually.”

He said that on previous occasions, the BWA suffered significant losses for failing to take precautions.

“We have learned from the past where we have not taken the level of precaution that we are now taking, as we would have done during Hurricane Elsa and as we are doing now, that we often suffer a loss of significant equipment, a loss of significant pumps.

“Whenever we resume operations, we find that it takes us weeks, sometimes months, to be able to recover, even though that may not be obvious at all times to all and sundry. The pumps are extremely expensive, and they are not necessarily easily replaceable, and sometimes, based on special orders, it takes time to be able to replace them, even though we have spares. So, out of caution, we would have shut down our systems to make sure that we protect the integrity of those systems and to make sure that when we resume operations, we can get our lines, transmission, or distribution system charged or fully replenished as soon as possible,” he disclosed.

The BWA boss further outlined that the process of shutting down the company’s systems was done in a phased approach, and as a result of the short notice, the BWA started much later to allow everyone to make the necessary preparations.

He reassured that there was still water available in the system.

“So, there’s still water in the mains and our reservoirs. In some areas, we have experienced low pressure. [There were] one or two complaints of water outages, and that was because we recognized that there was an immediate demand when the notices were posted. Having pulled that back a little bit, we were able to get those systems better replenished.”

(RG)