Government will be launching “a large strategic communications” plan to educate the public on the Water Reuse Act.
Responding to several concerns raised by Independent Senator Dr Kristina Hinds on the legislation’s lack of clarity in several areas, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Senator Dr Shantal Munro-Knight told the Upper House on Wednesday afternoon that consultants have already been hired for the venture.
“We understand that we need to bring the population into this strategy and to understand the importance of water reuse, and to be able to understand what constitutes something that falls within the ambit of this particular bill, and something that might be for personal use. We are intending to be able to do that to make sure that that is comprehensive,” said Munro-Knight who tabled the bill.
Joining the debate, Dr Hinds said many questions remained for the public on the operationalisation of the bill, which provides for the capture, collection, treatment and reuse of wastewater for various purposes.
“Does this mean that we have to have a second set of piping that disrupts the roads? Do we have to dig up roads again, to distribute this water across the island, whether it is for agriculture or other purposes, outside of eating and drinking and bathing and so on? So this may be one question that people have about the implementation,” she added.
Posing several queries on the limitations placed on supplying wastewater, the political scientist also questioned the lack of information provided in the bill on the cost of wastewater treatment permits for those interested and the requirements.
Dr Hinds also questioned why the bill had been changed from its previous more comprehensive version.
“We had sight of a version of the Water Reuse Bill in March, but that version is different from this one. I don’t know why the changes were made, but that previous document contained three schedules. This one contains one. One of those schedules had things such as the permit fees. It had a lot of other information about things like conflict of interest…
“So there are differences in these two versions of the bill that I don’t have any information on. What’s the rationale behind the changes here?” she asked.
Earlier in the debate, Munro-Knight highlighted that Barbados is extracting 98 per cent of its groundwater supply, with the majority going to domestic and irrigation purposes. She explained that through water reuse, five million gallons will be recovered daily.
(JB)
Read our ePaper. Fast. Factual. Free.
Sign up and stay up to date with Barbados' FREE latest news.
Barbados Today firmly discourages any commentary or statements that are libelous, disruptive in nature or incites others to violate our Terms of Use. Any submissions made on our comment section, are solely the views of the individual and not Barbados Today.