More concrete tanks to be built to improve water distribution

Five new concrete water tanks, four of them with the capacity to store 1.3 million gallons, will be constructed across the island to store and distribute the precious resource to Barbadians currently facing water woes.

Minister of Transport, Works and Water Resources Ian Gooding-Edghill, who made the disclosure during Sunday’s Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Christ Church East branch meeting, said while the present administration has done much to alleviate water issues, plans to further improve the situation are in the works.

“I’ve come to tell your Member of Parliament and to tell you, the good people of this constituency, that you will have a new 1.3 million-gallon concrete tank at Rising Sun, to complement the existing tanks you have under repair at Providence in this constituency,” he said.

Gooding-Edghill added that similar projects for St James and St Joseph, to help mitigate water woes in those parishes as well as provide additional capacity for surrounding areas, have already been given the green light.

“We plan to construct two tanks at Apes Hill, again with additional capacity of 1.3 million gallons of water going down there. So what is your Government doing? We have a problem, we suffered over the years, the investment in water did not happen and the Government, notwithstanding there is a pandemic, has remained committed to the supply and the augmentation of water in Barbados.

“We are not finished; the Government intends to construct an additional 600,000-gallon tank at Walkers in St. Andrew…and we are also going to improve the existing tank at Castle Grant, and we are going to build a new 1.3 million-gallon tank at Castle Grant in St. Joseph. So, five new concrete tanks to be constructed in Barbados,” he added.

The Minister also explained that running in tandem with the water tank project will be the Barbados Water Authority’s continued replacement of several broken mains which have contributed to the loss of millions of gallons of water annually.

“Since [the BLP came] to office, the Barbados Water Authority has laid more than 22 kilometres of mains, and when we go to install new tanks we are installing new mains, because the connections to the old cast iron tanks can no longer fit and they can no longer absorb the pressure and the flow of water that we want to put into the system,” Gooding-Edghill said.

“That is what we are faced with – the infrastructure was not changed out over time and because of the lack of investment in the water infrastructure in Barbados, the Government of Barbados has now found itself in a situation where it has to spend millions of dollars to improve the delivery and the supply of water.” (SB)