Repair bill still not known

The Barbados Water Authority is still counting losses from the last month’s power outages, which resulted in serious damage at its Hampton Pumping Station in St Philip.

Director of Engineering Charles Leslie told a recent press conference that the plant, which serves St Philip and Christ Church was now 95 per cent back up even as he hinted that the repair bill would be significant.

“We are actually currently putting together that cost now because we would have lost pumps, cables, components out of the drives and a lot of overtime would have gone into correcting the problem.”

Back on November 21, while crews were working to repair equipment, the well floor at the facility collapsed.  No one was injured in the incident.

Leslie said the BWA had to engage the services of technicians out of Panama.

“They were able to repair nine of the ten drives at Hampton pumping station, so it is almost back to full capacity.  Those technicians were also able to help us do some troubleshooting at a number of other plants across the country.

Leslie said water supply to the catchment areas is back to normal, noting that four pumps at the Hampton plant were online producing water.