BWA assures St Peter residents of work to improve service

The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) is working on improving the water distribution network in St Peter, with mains replacement on the cards though some works have been delayed.

Director of Engineering Charles Leslie told Monday’s St Peter Speaks town hall meeting at the Alexandra School that while some residents of the northern parish may experience discoloured water and other issues with supply, the BWA had been continuously working to rectify the situation from 2019 when the main reservoir in Boscobelle was replaced.

“The reservoir we had there before, the structural integrity of it could not withstand a major hurricane so we had to replace that. That was there from the 1970s; then what we have been doing systematically and strategically is replacing mains, but we obviously have to be prioritising the mains replacement effort,” he said.

“There are a number of other mains like in Centipede Alley and other areas [like] Cave Hill that we have earmarked for replacement.”

Leslie said while the mains replacing projects for the parish have been given the green light, unforeseen breaks being reported in previously low-priority connections had diverted the BWA’s attention.

“Here in St Peter, if you go from Haymans down to Farm Road, two Fridays ago we had a main that broke there. I think what happened is that the bridge collapsed first and carried the main with it, but that was not on our priority list. That now has to be brought up on the priority list because subsequent to the breakage, over the last week or so, we had four or five breaks of that main,” the BWA official explained.

“[With] mains replacement, we have to prioritise and as situations occur we have to keep revising those priorities.”

Leslie also updated residents on the state of the Hope Desalination Plant under construction, telling them that both the Hope and Collerton plants should be completed before the end of the year.

“The plant at the Hope is more advanced than the one at Collerton, but rest assured both plants will be set up at those two locations to add additional water into the system…. We are looking at possibly April this year to complete Hope, but the one at Collerton is going to be a bit [later] because we are now in the process of getting the membrane for that plant, so that is going to be like August,” he added.

Meanwhile, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Works and Water Resources Mark Cummins said significant progress had been made in mapping wells across the island, in particular those located on plantation lands.

“The Barbados Water Authority is well advanced in the survey of wells on plantations. I don’t have the exact number now but . . . they have completed more than 65 per cent. From the legislative standpoint, we have to work on the Prevention of Floods Act because while we have legislation it is, for want of a better word, dated and weak,” Cummins said. (SB)