The Barbados Water Authority is sending out an appeal to local hotels and schools, encouraging these entities to make a wise choice and invest in a commercial water storage tank to ensure that it can be business as usual in cases when there is disruption to their water supply.
The appeal comes this week from Joy-Ann Haigh, Rapid Response and Communications Manager at the Barbados Water Authority (BWA).
“Last Sunday, we would have made reference to the Personal Tank Programme (PTP) that caters only to domestic customers across the 11 parishes in Barbados in the middle income and under bracket. The Personal Tank Programme does not cater to commercial entities, however, that does not mean that companies should not invest in their own commercial tanks in order to avoid service disruptions,” Haigh pointed out.
“We have found that when there is a service disruption, in many cases the hotels and the schools can be impacted more by a water outage because the schools will have to close and when you look at the hotels, the tourists who we depend on for our foreign exchange and our economic growth, would be severely impacted if there is a water outage and there is no tank to support a continued supply,” she said.
The communications manager meanwhile noted that in particular, the BWA intends to meet shortly with the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), to have further discussions on the importance of having water tanks on site at hotels. She also stated that the Authority will also be engaging other organisations in the future.
She explained, “The tankers under our Rapid Response Unit are actually equipped with pumps to fill commercial tanks, but at times find it challenging on a point of entering into hotels who require assistance to find that a) there is a tank, but it is only hooked up to the hotel’s kitchen; b) there is a tank, but the pump is not working; c) there is a tank, but it is not hooked up at all; and more importantly, d) there is no tank.”
“This then obviously impacts the operations of the hotel. The tankers are equipped to assist them, but we cannot help in the absence of a functioning tank and this goes for the schools as well, because we have found that the schools also have tanks that are not hooked up to the entire plumbing system at the school. Sometimes they are hooked up to just the cafeteria, or one block of the school and not to the staff room, or to the staff room but not for the kids, which then leads to the school having to shut down, impacting on valuable teaching time,” Haigh stressed.
Pointing to the domino effect, Haigh suggested that ultimately the island’s image can be tarnished if guests return to their respective countries, armed with numerous complaints about their negative experience at any local hotel. As such, she indicated that hotels should have better water management systems in place, which include setting up a full commercial tank solution to minimise disruptions to their operations.
“The BWA is fully aware of its responsibility to ensure a continuous supply of water to all and has embarked on several projects over the last few years to improve its systems. This includes upgrades to pumping stations, the replacement of 79 kilometres of mains across the island, and the installation of a brackish water package desal plant at the Hope in St. Lucy. A salt water package desal plant at Trents, St. James is currently in progress. In addition, preliminary work on two permanent desalination plants to be placed in the north and south of the island, has commenced. Reservoirs are being reconstructed and an additional mains replacement programme is about to start, to name a few,” Haigh noted.
“These ongoing improvements to the service delivery will take some time and may cause some service disruptions. This is why it is imperative to see both the commercial tanks and the Personal Tanks Programme under the BWA, as an investment in the management of your water supply,” Haigh admonished.