Water everywhere, Except in the Dam (Reservoir)

Dam.
Reservoir.


In the minds of the vast majority of Jamaicans, the two words above are interchangeable, if not outright synonymous.

So, it was refreshing to hear the affable, straight-shooting acting President of  the National Water Commission, Mark Barnett, offer a differentiation.

Addressing Monday night's meeting of the Rotary Club of St Andrew North, Barnett, a chemical engineer and waste-water specialist by training ( and thus prone to extreme pragmatism) referred repeatedly to the Mona "Reservoir" arguably the city's main water distribution catchment as such, whilst using "Dam" to describe the frequently linked (mentally) facility at Hermitage in the St Andrew Hills as the 'Dam" - this because the latter actually spans the river, while the former occupies space at the base of a hill at the northeastern end of the famous Liguanea Plain.

However they're referred to, they are in fact in a critical state of under-supply, with Mona, at a reported 20% of usable capacity, pretty much empty. This means bad news for Kingston and St Andrew residents, in the form of even tighter water restrictions, barring more life-restoring showers of rain. Truth be told, this writer has been observing sporadic episodes of rainfall, with some heavy downpours on the windward side of the Blue Mountains, over the last couple of weeks. But, it must be stated, the rain clouds tend to move on a very narrow east-west axis, shadowing the mountains all the way, and leaving much of the Corporate Area still high and dry, except for a few occasions.

Of course, the capital, and the adjoining "suburbs" of Portmore and Spanish Town (can't we just have one mega-urban area encompassing these three and a few outliers?) are not the hardest hit. Nearby St Thomas, already branded the least well-off in the island, is feeling the drought squeeze, as is St Mary, one of the island's more diverse parishes topographically (mountains, beaches, salt flats and everything in between), with beautiful, bountiful but knotty Portland sitting in between them, but hardly able to offer tangible help due to its own woeful underdevelopment.

Back to the capital. One solution, that Barnett says the NWC has already started pursuing is going under - as in resucitating and re-comissioning wells in nearby St Catherine as well as in greater Kingston. This is alleviating the situation somewhat, but represents a cost that the NWC - tied as it is to a Government apparatus already short on cash and about to head into election mode - can not sustain, at least not without heavy borrowing or private sector intervention.

One option the NWC Prez clearly ruled out, was desalination, with a fairly compelling cost argument (water bills would, roughly, triple assuming funds could be identified to construct the appropriate facilities). In truth, this alternative has been bandied about since the 70s, when many of the oil-rich Mideast sultanates initiated it, but  the cost is clearly now prohibitive to us.

Barnett also did a neat mea culpa for his organization, saying the NWC needed to become much more efficient in its operations. But he quickly turned that around to the consumers, a term which he meant to be different from "customers" the latter group being the ones who actually pay for water from the NWC as opposed to merely 'consuming" it (by design or default). Added on to this, he said the utility's customer base was presently way too small to allow it to do more of the things needed to modernize and maximize water delivery. He'd like to see the customer roll move from the present 470,000 (roughly) to a minimum of 750,000, the latter figure providing some breathing room, assuming most customers pay on time in full.

And of course, he emphasized conservation. He added that for too long, many Jamaicans had been treating fresh water (as in treated and certified potable) as an infinite resource when it was anything but. Barnett conceded that such attitude changes would take time to effect, but was putting in his small punch from the vantage point afforded.


The Rotary Club of St Andrew North meets Mondays at the headquarters of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica (ICAJ), beginning at 6:30, and is currently headed by Sandra Samuels, of males-only salon/boutique Totally Male.