The people of water-deprived areas of St. Joseph, namely Branchbury, have begun receiving relief as water began to flow through taps from the Barbados Water Authority, Minister of Transport, Works and Water Resources, Ian Gooding-Edghill, said Wednesday.
He confirmed that thousands of gallons of water have been pumped into the Castle Grant reservoir since April 29 to help bring much-needed water to the affected residents,
“So far, the BWA had trucked more than 422,000 gallons into the Castle Grant reservoir that has brought some measure of relief to the people of Branchbury and surrounding areas. It is an ongoing plan. We had to do it to make sure we maintain levels and address… the low reservoirs,” he explained on Down to Brasstacks.
More relief is in the pipeline for St Joseph, St John and St Thomas with the multi-million dollar Vineyard Water Augmentation Project, Gooding-Edghill said. The project. which will transfer water from the BWA’s Vineyard, St. Philip reservoir to the Bowmanston/ Golden Ridge system, is to be completed in the coming weeks.
The minister said: “We anticipate that Vineyard will come on stream in a couple of weeks; you would appreciate that we would have some challenges, not to flog the volcanic ash, but that in itself posed some problems. We also had some delays with the weather.
“But we are on track, this is a 16-million dollar project and we should be ready within a few weeks. The benefit of the Vineyard project, we are going to have stations at Vineyard itself and Mount Pleasant and then we are going to transfer the water from the Vineyard system to the Golden Ridge Reservoir and then from the Golden Ridge Reservoir, it will be transferred into the Castle Grant system to bring additional relief for the residents on the eastern side of St Joseph.
“That area, in particular, will benefit from that upgrade. I have been advised that almost all the piping has been completed, the pump houses we are getting those ready, the tanks are all up. It will benefit St Joseph and parts of St Thomas.” (SB)
