No water ease

While Barbados has welcomed some rains in recent days, the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) is reminding the public that water restrictions are still in effect as the island remains in a drought.

Insisting that “a few swallows do not make a summer”, the BWA’s Manager of Water Resources and Environmental Management Alex Ifill pointed out that the recent rains will take months before entering the groundwater supply.

“The rain falling now will take protracted time, on average, to reach the wells that we can use it. So this rain that you see in the past few days, although it will impact places like Bowmanston immediately, for the West Coast wells and wells in the Belle, it will take a few months to get there” he said.

Ifill said that with the island in an agricultural drought, specific crops cannot be sustained and as such, it is necessary to monitor the various wells around the island to see what is happening with the groundwater supply.

He was speaking to the media on Wednesday morning, moments before the group headed down for a tour of the cave at the bottom of the 300-foot well at the Bowmanston Pumping Station.

“The wells at Bowmanston act as the warning signals for us because in the higher elevations and as a stream water well, you will see the response much quicker to any climatic trends heading towards drought. So while we are not yet in a drought that will impact us, which is called a hydrological drought, or a water resources drought, we are using this and taking note of the climatic trends, and also the trends in all water levels at these wells and the salinity levels on the coast, to make sure that we give ample notice to the public of Barbados that it is time to start conserving and to put these measures in place.

“Some of the wells in this area have shown some levels of reduction in water level, but not to the level we saw in the 2018/19 drought, which is one of the worst droughts on record. But we cannot wait until it gets there to signal to the nation that is time for concern,” he added.

Furthermore, Ifill warned that in spite of this week’s rains, drier days are forecasted to return and these could run into July.

Noting that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was predicting a 62 per cent chance of El Nino between May and July, Ifill said this weather phenomenon is usually associated with low rainfall, high temperatures and relatively increased wind speeds and as such, it is highly likely that the island ends up in a hydrological drought that will impact water resources.

“These are only probabilities. It doesn’t mean it will come through, we hope it doesn’t but we are being prepared for the worst-case scenario,” he expressed. (JB)