Water and utility companies at odds over power outage

The Barbados Light & Power Company Limited (BLPC) has refuted a claim by the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) that an early morning island-wide power outage on Tuesday was responsible for the disruption of service at the Ionics Desalination plant, resulting in low water pressure for scores of residents across two parishes.

In a statement just before midday on Tuesday, the water company claimed that as a result of the power outage, the desalination plant has not been able to get back to full production.

However, a few hours later, the BLPC said it could confirm that there was no island-wide power outage, while expressing concern at the “misleading” statement by the BWA.

The BWA had alleged that as a result of the disruption, several communities in the parishes of St James and St Thomas were experiencing low water pressure.

It said the interruption in power took its stations offline and personnel had to be deployed to restart most of the facilities.

“Due to the island-wide power outage experienced early this morning, Tuesday, February 22, Ionics Freshwater Ltd. has advised that the Desalination Plant has not yet been able to get back to full production. This Plant normally sends water onto the Barbados Water Authority’s station at St Stephen’s. Consequently, this deficit at St Stephen’s has affected the Authority’s ability to pump water further into the distribution network,” the BWA had explained.

“As a result, persons in the following areas may today experience low water pressure or a water outage. St James – Appleby, Derricks, Fitts Village, Holetown, Jamestown Park, Mount Standfast, Paynes Bay, Porters, Prospect, Sunset Crest, Trents, Prospect, Fitts Village, Appleby, Derricks, Paynes Bay, Sandy Lane, Sunset Crest, Holetown, Jamestown Park, Lower Mount Standfast, Storehouse Gap, The Garden, Weston, Lower Crick Hill, Lower Carlton, and surrounding areas.”

The BWA statement, which was posted on its website and social media platforms, said that the communities in St Thomas affected were Arch Hall, Welches, Redman’s Village, Bagatelle and surrounding districts.

The water utility company further noted that it had “suffered a pump failure at a facility in St Peter which has affected residents in St Silas, Orange Hill, Apes Hill and the immediate surrounding areas”, while promising that it would make every effort to assist the affected residents with water tankers as long as the problem persisted.

However, in a statement just after 3 p.m. on Tuesday, the BLPC dismissed the BWA’s assertion of an all-island blackout, saying it was false.

“The Barbados Light & Power Company Ltd. (BLPC) is aware of a public service announcement released by the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) falsely reporting that there was an island-wide power outage early this morning, Tuesday, February 22, 2022, which affected operations at their Ionics Desalination Plant. BLPC confirms there was not an island-wide power outage this morning and we are concerned by the BWA’s misleading report,” the BLPC said in its statement, which was also posted on social media platforms.

In a subsequent notice to Barbados TODAY, the BWA said it apologised for any “miscommunication in its earlier messaging” but stated that around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday, “our SCADA system which monitors the Authority’s pumping stations alerted us to the fact that Barbados Water Authority’s facilities from St Philip to St Lucy were impacted by an electrical glitch”.

It said it had made every effort to get its stations back online in as timely a manner as possible to reduce the impact on its customers.

“The Authority has been in discussion with the Barbados Light & Power Company concerning this matter and awaits the results of their investigations,” said the BWA.

Since the earlier statements, however, several residents took to social media to report that they were not affected by any power outage, while others indicated that they noticed “a dip” in their electricity service shortly after midnight. Other residents complained of low water pressure.

The BLPC is said to be carrying out further investigations. (MM)