Local NewsNews Aged pipes, silt reason for brown water in St Lucy, says BWA official by Barbados Today 01/02/2023 written by Barbados Today Updated by Asminnie Moonsammy 01/02/2023 2 min read A+A- Reset Alex Ifill speaking during the event. Share FacebookTwitterLinkedinWhatsappEmail 603 A build-up of silt and the highly-aged water supply infrastructure are responsible for the brown-coloured water coming out of taps in St Lucy. Water Quality Specialist at the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) Alex Ifill gave that explanation during Monday’s Parish Speaks town hall meeting at the Daryll Jordan Secondary School in St Lucy. He was responding to complaints from residents of the northernmost parish that occasionally, over the last several months, their water supply has been brown. Ifill said the reason for this was multilayered but stemmed from the aged pipes across the parish. “There are some significant problems in St Lucy as it relates to brown water. It is a two-fold problem; we have a very aged network, it breaks constantly and causes disruptions in the service and, therefore, causes brown water,” he explained. “At Allendale over the past few years, we have noticed siltation. Siltation is a natural process but usually it takes 30, 40 years for a significant amount of silt to accumulate. In the past few years, with the constant change [in rainfall], these things have acted to accelerate the siltation at Allendale,” Ifill added. You Might Be Interested In Crystal Beckles-Holder, 2nd runner up in regional competition GUYANA: Body of child found after gold mine collapses Barbadians asked to help with return tickets for Haitians BWA’s Director of Engineering Charles Leslie, who was also at the town hall meeting, said that despite the replacement of a large number of pipes and mains across Barbados over the past several years, the Authority gets about 1 200 complaints every month about breakages in its system. “We have about 110 000 to 115 000 customers, so that is about one per cent of our network that is breaking constantly every month, and a lot of those lines have aged,” he said. “We are doing a replacement now in Rock Dundo replacing some of the lines and as we try to replace some of those lines the main itself is dropping into holes, so we had to do some replacement there as well.” Leslie assured that the BWA was pushing forward with several projects to replace aged infrastructure that caused disruptions in its network. (SB) Barbados Today Stay informed and engaged with our digital news platform. The leading online multimedia news resource in Barbados for news you can trust. You may also like Weymouth Wales hold top spot, Brittons Hill second in BFA Premier League 20/04/2025 Man shot and robbed 20/04/2025 Six medals for Barbados at Carifta Aquatics 20/04/2025