BWA aging pipes headache

As consumers in Barbados continue to cry out for adequate supplies of drinking water in a country where the precious commodity is scarce, authorities are now faced with an alarming increase in the number of burst mains and pipes.

And according to General Manager of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) Keithroy Halliday, this predicament is costing the Government many millions as it seeks to repair and replace the damaged lines with support from a variety of funding agencies.

Halliday said the aged mains and pipes are rupturing so often that the annual number of damaged pipes rose from an average of 9,600 four years ago to 19,200 now.

He told Barbados TODAY that during the same period, water mains burst at a rate of 960 per year. That figure now stands at 1,560 annually.

The BWA General Manager revealed that it will cost the Government between $40 and $45 million on average for the first phase of a Strategic Mains Replacement Programme (SMRP) which will focus on the most critical areas of the island hardest hit by water shortages.

“The Strategic Mains Replacement Programme which we have now, focuses on what we need to do in St Lucy and what we need to do for the other critical mains that are constantly bursting because they are aged. We have a couple areas dotted around the country where we are continually repairing several times a month because those particular lines are used. We also have in some instances some lines that are on the site based on population growth and improvements for density,” he stated.

“The main areas under the programme are those aged lines with discolouration…that is urgent for us. Most of those mains are in St Peter, one or two are in St James. We have it elsewhere, but the main ones we have, are in the north of the island,” the senior executive told Barbados TODAY.

“We have other major mains replacement programmes to do as well. And there are specific pockets that we are tackling, we just have to keep pushing on that. The reality is that in order for us to keep check and to do what is required just from a maintenance standpoint, we should be changing between one and half to two per cent of our mains every year…that is costly,” Halliday said.

He noted that while leakage continues to be a problem, it is being managed as best as possible.

“That is something we manage through technology…we manage through mains replacement…through review, oversight or whatever is happening in the field by using flow meters, logic devices, whatever it is so that we can respond. We use the pressure logic device to make sure we are not putting too much water in one area or that we are putting sufficient because we don’t want to push too much water in one area particularly with the mains that are weak and then we get increased bursts.

“So the way that we are managing becomes a lot more sophisticated and a lot better so that the average non-revenue water (NRW) that we have of lost resources of three per cent, we can control that. The stark reality is that is a real challenge for most utility companies. I just came off a panel discussion where one utility company is showing that their NRW is 60 per cent. What that means is that for every dollar of production spent, 60 cents of it is going down the tube. Every dollar we spend, the actual physical leak is 37 per cent…so for every dollar we are actually losing 37 per cent from the ground,” Halliday explained.

On the topic of new sources of potable water, the chief said while the authority has been augmenting the existing sources over the past five years, the digging of new wells is not necessarily the solution to boosting supplies.

“What we have to be cognizant of is that digging a lot more wells may not necessarily be the solution, unless they are going into untapped areas of the reservoir. But if it is that you are putting another straw in the same cup, you are just extracting water faster from the same basin or from the same cup. These are the kinds of hydrological concerns that have been looked at and are addressed,” he said.

“We try to be creative where water might be running and not captured and is running out to sea underground…those are the areas we are trying to tap into to get additional water so we are not losing that water. There have been a number of measures put in place such as damming of water in certain areas. That has commenced to make sure we are catching as much water as we can.

“In that connection, we have also been encouraging householders to harvest water…capture water from the roofs for non-potable purposes – to wash down your patios, houses, clean your car or vessels. These are the kinds of initiatives we want to see more and more Barbadians engaged in so that they don’t use the most expensive commodity of potable water for purposes which they may not need it for,” Halliday pointed out.”
(emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)