‘We have the wood, but no water’

WESTERN BUREAU:

Jamaicans in several sections of the island are bemoaning the struggle to get water in their communities amid years of unfulfilled promises and a worsening drought affecting the island.

In an advertisement in today’s Sunday Gleaner, the National Water Commission (NWC) has advised residents of Kingston and St Andrew of water-supply regulation schedules which come into effect on Monday. According to the NWC, the 808.5 million-gallon capacity Mona Reservoir is now 72.7 per cent full, while the Hermitage Dam, which has a capacity of 228 million gallons, is at 57.9 per cent. The seven million-gallon Logwood and New Milns plants are at 75 per cent.

In detailing the impact of the drought on its operations across the island, the NWC said that systems in at least seven of the remaining 12 parishes were seeing outputs of less than 50 per cent, with the Portland systems – which supply areas such as Haining, Packi River, Norwich, Windsor Forest, Turtle Crawl and Long Bay – the worst affected with 32.5 per cent output currently.

In St James, the NWC says areas such as Endeavour, Mafoota, Cambridge, Niagara, Dantrouth pump station and Vaughnsfield are seeing 52.5 per cent output.

Restriction schedules for other sections of the island were not included in the advertisement, but residents in some sections of the parish, including in the Somerton division, told The Sunday Gleaner last week that their water woes began long before the current drought as many have had to resort to acquiring their own tanks to ensure they have access to the commodity.

The residents said they have been facing inconsistent or no water supply in their pipes for almost a decade, and challenges to accessing a reliable supply remain despite the presence of the tanks which were put in place through the efforts of their councillor, Mark McGann.

Tambana is one of three communities in the division in which a water shop was placed with the new facility, consisting of two 1,000-gallon tanks, at the entrance to the community. However, the tanks have not been commissioned since their installation.

Bernice Bulgin, a 79-year-old resident of Tambana who has a concrete tank for harvesting rainwater along with two 1,000-gallon plastic tanks, lamented that the problem sourcing the commodity in the area is compounded by people who empty the water shop for themselves, as well as the theft of a pipe which had been installed near her home several years ago.

“I have been here since about 1974, and we used to get water and a pipe used to be down by the road, but we nuh have no water in no pipeline. Some people did thief the line, so we don’t have any line … . We have the wood, but no water,” said Bulgin, referencing the popular characterisation of Jamaica as the Land of Wood and Water.

“There are two tanks down the road that a water truck used to fill up. They used to get filled by the parish council (municipal corporation). Sometimes when they fill the tank, only two houses get the water because when other people are at home at night, some persons spend time and bail out it and put it at fi dem yard,” Bulgin added last week, adding that she had to fork out $5,000 to purchase water a day earlier.

“Some persons said they would come to live up here, [but] it’s just the water is the issue.”

A resident of the neighbouring Windsor Lodge, who only identified himself as Melville, said he has to pay upwards of $30,000 monthly to fill his tanks as he has to ensure there is an adequate supply for his livestock.

“If rain nuh fall, a water we haffi buy. You have a guy who run his own private truck, supplying the area, and for one of the 1,000-gallon tanks, you haffi pay $6,000 for that to fill. I have animals – goats, pigs, and broiler chickens – and all of them consume water, so you find one tank serve me for just a week, and then I have to get another one for the house, so that’s $30,000 a month and maybe more,” Melville complained.

“It’s more than a year since we talk to National Water Commission because talking to them makes no sense. Talking to the politicians is worse because all they do is make promises and a promise is a comfort to a fool,” Melville added. “Successive governments ... keep offering us promises that they gonna fix the pipeline and all now nothing nuh happen. They build a tank up at Somerton, and all now we still can’t hear nothing about it, and it’s going on three years since the tank did build.”

He was referencing ongoing work in the Cedar Hill area of Somerton for the construction of a 300,000-gallon tank, which will serve communities such as Somerton, Goodwill, Content, Orange, Lottery, Sunderland, and even as far away as Irwin Heights.

Ground was broken for that $300-million project in February 2020 by Rural Water Supply Limited, chaired by the then Montego Bay Mayor Homer Davis.

In October 2022, St James East Central Member of Parliament Edmund Bartlett announced that pipe-laying work from the Cedar Hill pumping station would be completed by December. Since then, there has been no update on the proposed timeline for the project’s completion.

The lack of water would certainly be a major issue for the Somerton Primary and Infant School if its four 1,000-gallon tanks were not regularly filled by the St James Municipal Corporation (StJMC).

“Whenever there is a lock-off or when the pump is not working in the community, we are affected. When we are out of water, we call the NWC and they truck water to us. We have 4,000 gallons of water stored, and the StJMC or NWC refills the tanks,” Principal Glendon Brydson told The Sunday Gleaner.

“No matter what you do, persons have to harvest their own water in some communities, especially in the deep rural communities where they get rainfall on a regular basis. We’re in drought time now, and there are communities who would have had pipes where no water is going in them for years now,” Brydson added, noting that there are several adjoining areas without water.

For some residents of Goodwill, roughly 20 minutes drive from Somerton, the Cedar Hill tank may not come soon enough. They assert that while they have their own water shop, which was recently installed, the water supply to the lower section of the district, where a standpipe is located next to one of the local shops, is inconsistent.

“It’s been a good while that no water is here, couple years now. The tank was put up at the square, right at the crossing, but people from down the road have to be pushing things up the road to the tank to get water,” said resident Linton Marsh.

When contacted by The Sunday Gleaner, Bartlett noted that construction on the Cedar Hill water supply system is ongoing in earnest.

“The Cedar Hill water tank, which is a 300,000-gallon tank, is being connected to the Canaan wells. Distribution pipes are being laid to bring a proper water system for all the communities from Irwin and Chelsea to Goodwill, Somerton, and Industry,” he said.

NWC Corporate Communications Manager Andrew Canon has not responded to Sunday Gleaner questions sent to him two weeks ago and several calls to his phone went unanswered.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com