Tremendous improvement in water levels at reservoirs - Buchanan
Published:Monday | October 29, 2018 | 12:00 AMJodi-Ann Gilpin/Gleaner Writer
Charles Buchanan, commu-nications manager at the National Water Commission (NWC), has reported that there has been moderate improvement in water levels across the island, specifically at the Hermitage Dam in St Andrew.
Buchanan told The Gleaner yesterday that the Hermitage Dam's capacity level is now at 76 per cent, up from 25 per cent in August. He said though it is a common occurrence for water levels to exceed 100 per cent at this time of the year, he is still grateful for the tremendous improvement.
"Hermitage had been low as 25 per cent at one point and was of significant concern to us, but thankfully things have improved. Throughout the month of October, essentially, we have seen a gradual improvement," he said.
"While we would prefer to be even better, September and October are usually the highest rainfall months, so it's not uncommon for the dams to be either 100 per cent capacity or close to it."
The communications manager outlined, however, that the parish of Portland continues to show some concerns, as some water systems are still having deficits.
"We still have some drought-impacted systems. It may not be parish-wise, but we still have some drought-impacted systems in Portland, for example. Despite some rainfall in some parts of the parish, we are still not having rainfall across the entire parish or rainfall that is sustained enough to have the inflows into some of our sources," Buchanan said.
"I know that we have several systems in Portland that continue to produce less water than is required."