Sheraton ‘water outage closure unrelated to power cuts’

The water was off at Sheraton Mall today, forcing it to close its doors early but was not linked to a power cut, general manager of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA), Keithroy Halliday this evening revealed.

Problems at two BWA pumping stations at New Market and Hampton were blamed for the outage but Halliday also warned that other districts across a wide swathe of the island would see water shortages over the next “24 to 48 hours”.

Sheraton’s food court was first to close at around 1 p.m. with the rest of the mall shutting at around 6 p.m.

Giving an update on the outage at the Prime Minister’s press conference at Illaro Court, Halliday said the two pumping stations had been damaged.

But he pledged that the BWA was working around the clock to ensure that the affected pumping stations are up and running within 24 hours.

He told reporters: “We are substantially online with the exception of two stations where we have been having some challenges with damaged equipment, primarily New Market and Hampton.

“Those two stations are still producing but not at the capacity that they would normally produce.

“We have crews actually working right now as we speak to repair that equipment and it is going to take probably another 12 to 24 hours and then we will be back up to full capacity.

“But what it means is that it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the distribution system to be fully replenished and therefore we will still see bouts of water outages in several areas.”

He said those areas included some parts of St Lucy, St Joseph, St Michael and Christ Church.

Districts nearby to Sheraton, including Wildey, Clapham, Vauxhall and Fort George would see low pressure or intermittent pressure, he said.

Minister of Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams also used the news conference to quash rumours that the island’s water system was contaminated with the intestinal bacteria E.coli, saying the suggestion was simply not true.

Abrahams said: “There has been something going around suggesting a presence of E.coli in our water system.

“It has been making the rounds and we have been getting a lot of questions about it at the BWA.

“There is no truth to that at all. The BWA has undertaken some stepped-up testing along with the Ministry of Health in relation to reports of discoloured water in some of the northern parishes.

“The tests have revealed a reduced level of residual chlorine in the system and we have taken measures to correct it, which has seen an increase in the residual chlorine levels, but what has been circulating is a dangerous misrepresentation and an untruth.”