Curb water use, says Abrahams

Barbados’ water situation is at a crisis level and Minister of Energy and Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams is pleading with Barbadians not to waste the precious resource.

His comments came today after a decision was made to shutdown the Bowmanston pumping station due to low water levels in the aquifer.

The shutdown of the station means residents and businesses in St John, St George, St Joseph and St Andrew will be affected by water outages.

Abrahams said a concerted effort had to be made by all to conserve water.

“It is not business as usual. We need to curb the way that we use water. We need to start looking at water differently. Water is like the new oil,” the minister said.

“We need to stop wasting water and we need to follow the Barbados Water Authority’s (BWA) tips.”

Abrahams also sympathized with persons living in the north of the island who were regularly faced with water outages.

He said while the BWA was doing all in its power to rectify the situation, the drought conditions were making it extremely difficult to do.

“I feel the pain of the people in the northern parishes, the parishes with higher elevation that are complaining and that are feeling the brunt of this.

“We need to conserve the water we are using so they can get some…I want the people who are affected by low pressure, the people who have the chronic issues in St Joseph, St John, St Lucy, St Thomas, to know we are taking this very, very seriously. We come to work every day trying to fix this problem but it is a problem of a scale you can’t understand unless you are actually involved in it,” Abrahams said.

The minister said the only way to ensure everyone on the island was adequately serviced with water was through the construction of desalination plants.

And while he said it was an option Government was willing to consider, he pointed out that it was extremely expensive.

“Desalination has to be a part of our planning going forward. The BWA is looking to install two packaged desalination plants; a saltwater desalt plant and a brackish water desalt plant, and we are also engaged in conversations with persons for the supply of industrial desal.

“Never was it our position that desal is not going to be a part of our solution. The only way to actually guarantee you have a steady supply of water is to pull water from the sea, so it does form a part of our plan but it has to be a part of our plan that makes sense,” Abrahams maintained.

“Desal is the most expensive form of water that we can get. If Barbadians were willing to pay the economic cost of pulling the water whether it be out of the ground or from a desalination source our problems would disappear.”

The minister contended that if that cost was passed on to Barbadians there would be a huge outcry despite the fact that the country had some of the lowest water rates in the world.

Wilfred revealed that he already began negotiations with contractors regarding the construction of the two desalination plants.

He said a previous contract awarded by the former administration meant the BWA would have had to pay $100 million annually for the desalination plants to be built.

The minister said while this Government had cancelled those contracts, the BWA was in negotiation with the previous contractors with hopes of finding a reasonable solution.

Those two desalination plants will each take three years to construct.