Fresh move

With worsening water scarcity from prolonged drought, Government is now planning to upgrade to tertiary sewage treatment plants in a bid to recover some of the wastewater for further use, Minister of Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams has revealed.

Government’s plan to upgrade the south coast plant, which was announced last September, has now been extended to include the Bridgetown facility, to ensure that wastewater can be recycled for non-potable use, the Minister added.

He said that Barbados must now do all in its power to build resilience, considering that the Caribbean, which, is usually affected by two-year dry spells, is now undergoing a five-year drought.

Abrahams told Barbados TODAY: “Government has given the approval to move to upgrading the two plants, which is the Bridgetown plant as well as the south coast sewage project.

“Implementation of additional augmentation measures is under very serious consideration by Government and one of the things that we must buy into and accept, is that we could reuse wastewater for things that are not potable.

“Treated wastewater could be used for irrigating grass, cooling systems, flushing toilets and when we do that the amount that we have to use from the more expensive option would be reduced.”

The Minister for Water Resources said the funding for the upgrades would come from a private-public partnership (PPP) agreement that Government was in the process of setting up a team to negotiate.

But Abrahams was reluctant to provide a time frame for the expected completion of these projects, saying only that the Mia Mottley administration considered them a priority.

He said: “These processes take a while. It is not that you decide to upgrade a plant and then you go to the bank and use the plant as security.

“We are doing it as a PPP and there are a lot of things that are involved here that we have never considered. This is breaking new ground and not just in terms of the PPP, but we now have to consider a distribution system.

“When you treat the water, what do you do with it? If we want to use it for agriculture do we have to do a dedicated piping line?

“Do we have to institute dual plumbing codes so that water is not piped to persons homes for drinking but for flushing toilets?

“So this is not something that we could rush.”

Minister Abrahams added: “We have completed the first step in that we have wrapped our head around the fact that it has to happen.

“This would normally take a long time but we are trying to do four steps, which would normally be sequential, at the exact same time in order to get it done as quickly as possible.”

Apart from funding, Government has to undertake the mission of getting Barbadians used to the notion of using treated wastewater for some household functions, he said.

He told Barbados TODAY: “We would also need to have a massive public education aspect to this.

“We now have to wrap the mind of the Barbadian around the fact that what was once in my toilet is now going to be put to use somewhere back on land.

“It is going to be a process, but we are trying to deal with it as quickly as possible.”
colvillemounsey@barbadostoday.bb