Mayor wants frequent review of water personnel

Delroy Williams, Kingston's mayor, said it is imperative that there is a frequent review of persons who apply chlorine to water systems across the island.

Williams' comments came against the background of reported contamination at the Constant Spring Water Treatment Plant. Speaking with The Gleaner following Tuesday's monthly meeting of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation, Williams said that going forward, the corporation is embarking on being proactive before anything serious occurs. He also said that there has been significant improvement in water quality this year in comparison to other years.

"We have been doing well. Our performance across the municipality, generally speaking, is better now than last year. I believe now that the level of coordination between the agencies is getting better," he said.

"I would also [like to see] the Public Health and Disaster Preparedness Committee focus on a systematic review of personnel applying chlorine across the municipality. It's important that they continue to review the persons to evaluate their performance and also continue to train them so that we ensure the application of chlorine is done correctly," Williams told The Gleaner.

He said that a meeting was to be held yesterday with stakeholders from relevant agencies to monitor what is happening at the Constant Spring plant.

"The Public Health Depart-ment continues to monitor what is happening at the farm and continues to monitor the water quality. The NWC (National Water Commission) continues to monitor the water quality. They have also engaged the Ministry of Agriculture, which would include RADA (Rural Agricultural Developmental Authority) officers. We would want them to get involved to help us look at the farming practices in watershed areas to see whether or not in some instances it is just a matter of proper education and training of the farmers," he said.

"It is something that we take seriously and something that we monitor monthly. Most persons don't know that we monitor the water quality across the municipality on a monthly basis, and we will continue to do so."