BWA promises fix for outages, discoloured water

The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) says it has a long-term plan to fix the discoloured water issues and outages impacting customers in St John, St George and St Philip, but in the meantime, is implementing short-term measures to bring those residents relief.

In a statement on Thursday, in which it apologised for the inconvenience caused to affected customers, the BWA outlined the efforts it is making to address the problem and the timeline for taking those actions.

The cause of the problem, it said, is that its station at Bowmanston, St John is sometimes affected negatively by silt/ mud entering the well whenever the area receives heavy rainfall.

“Once there are bouts of intense rainfall in the area, silt and mud are washed into the Bowmanston well, causing discoloured water (which is termed increased turbidity). On occasions where the weather is extreme or prolonged, the authority would generally take the pumping station offline until weather conditions improve and the level of turbidity settles down. This action is taken to prevent discoloured water being pumped into the network and to our customers.

“Recently, the island in general and this area in particular have received a large amount of rainfall and the stoppage of pumping at this station has caused residents in . . . St John, St George and St Philip to be affected by low pressure or water outages,” the BWA explained.

The water company said it is making adjustments to the distribution system to bring water from neighbouring systems into the affected areas to reduce some of the districts affected by outages, and will make every effort to continue assisting customers in the affected areas via water tanker as a temporary measure once the situation persists.

It said pumping will resume from the facility once the turbidity levels are reduced.

Outlining the long-term solutions, the BWA said there is a project that will start early next year to rehabilitate the upstream areas of the catchment to reduce the ingress of silt and mud getting into the stream.

“The BWA will also be cleaning and refurbishing the Reservoir at the location which was in place from the 1800s.
The authority will also be looking at a system to treat any silty water that still manages to get into the stream,” it added. (BT)