BARBADOS can no longer depend on rainfall for its water supply.
This is why, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resource Management, Dr David Estwick, says he is plunging ahead to push for the construction of two desalination plants in country.
“One is now with the Town and Country Planning Department and the other one is going through its hydro-geological works. If we don’t start to put these systems in place, and abstracting 99 plus per cent of all the water in aquifers, based on rainfall, where are we going to get the water from?”
Dr Estwick made it clear that this is one of the key strategies needed to move the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) along a sustainable development path, as he delivered remarks during yesterday’s official launch of the BWA and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Masdar Renewable Energy Project, at the Authority’s Pine Commercial Estate headquarters.
An outspoken Dr Estwick indicated that a water loss and management study done in Barbados in 1995 showed that Barbados was consuming about 98 to 99 per cent of the water that it had in its aquifers based on an average rainfall of about 57 inches per year.
“Two weeks ago, the Chief Town Planner [Mark Cummins] came to the Cabinet and outlined the new Physical Development Plan (PDP) to the Cabinet. The Town Planner again urged that now we are abstracting 99.5 per cent. So any slight reduction of rainfall we had a drought. But the Minister would get curse for the rainfall.”
“So in that context, I have to use every available tool, to make sure that the supply side is managed. So when we are building out our sewage system, they must now go to tertiary capacity and we will be introducing aquifer recharge,” he outlined.
Dr Estwick said the renewable energy revolution application is also a pivotal aspect of modernizing the institution. On this note, he gave the assurance that he was moving “aggressively to rebuild our sewer systems”.
“They are all old, archaic and failing,” he said.
“This is the reality. Old concrete break up, as simple as that, and old equipment fail. You can imagine the level of the development that would have happened on the south coast since the 1990s when that South Coast plant was built. So we are now facing infrastructure issues and future capacity issues,” Dr Estwick added.
Additionally, plans are also being put in place to modernise the country’s waste water and waste systems development, noting that this is why the move was made to set up the BWA Waste Water Division.
“The critical element of that is this. We have to stop moving to treat water and sending it out in the ocean for the fish. We are moving to treat our sewage and our septic waste to tertiary standards and then introduce aquifer recharge.”
“That is something that I am going to move aggressively with management and staff towards achieving. No longer will we be sending 3 million gallons of water into the ocean that can be brought back on land to supplement the water in our aquifers,” he said.(AH)