Prime Minister Mia Mottley has announced that basic water rate relief for affected St Lucy residents will continue until a new filtration system is installed, after production and supply chain delays pushed back the project.
The relief had been due to end in September, but Mottley said Government would continue to honour its commitment while work at the Barbados Water Authority’s (BWA) Alleynedale facility is completed.
“We made a commitment that we were going to resolve this issue,” Mottley said during a site update on Tuesday. “It is not yet where we want it, but it is significantly better than it was. Because of the difficulties in that company’s production capacity, plus the supply chain disruptions, it has pushed us back to receiving those containers in September or October.”
Addressing the extension of the basic rate relief, the Prime Minister added: “The Ministry of Finance had written to the CEO of the Water Authority and its board to indicate that the payments for the basic water rates would have come to an end in September. We have agreed to extend that until such time as the filtration system is properly installed so that even though the majority of residents of St Lucy are facing much better circumstances, a deal is a deal is a deal.”
The project has included the replacement of more than 42 kilometres of water mains across St Lucy, while the BWA has also been working to address discolouration in the water supply.
Charles Leslie, director of engineering at the BWA, said the mains replacement component of the project had been completed.
“The main replacement component is completed, so most residents in St Lucy would have noticed that we would have completed the replacements of those mains,” Leslie said. “Those mains were contributing to the discoloration. Over 42 kilometres — 43 kilometres — were replaced across the parish in one year. The crews really went above and beyond to do those replacements, working night and day in some instances.”
He explained that the BWA initially installed a cartridge filtration system, but it did not achieve the desired results.
“When we started the whole project to clean the water up in St Lucy, we indicated that it was a multi-pronged project,” Leslie said. “We looked at mains replacement. We’d also looked at a filtration system that we would install here at the plant. We did testing and we originally installed a cartridge filtration system, but that did not achieve the total goal that we wanted in terms of getting the water crystal clear.”
The authority subsequently sourced another filtration system from a company in California, United States, which will arrive in Barbados in a containerised format and be connected at Alleynedale.
“That system that we are going to implement is being produced at a company in California in the USA, and we’re bringing that to Barbados in a containerised format,” Leslie said. “We’re going to be connecting that, and that will allow us to be able to get clearer water.”
Under the revised timeline, two of the five containers required for the filtration system are expected to arrive in Barbados by September, with the remaining three due by the end of October.
Mottley said that while the BWA’s initial schedule projected completion by the end of February, based on a standard 40-hour working week, she had asked the authority to accelerate the work with the aim of completing the project before the end of December.
The Prime Minister also disclosed that challenges at the site forced project managers to change the location of the plant. The foundation was moved to a rock outcrop less than 200 metres away in an effort to keep the project within budget.
Mottley said international supply chain issues had also affected the project’s timeline, pointing to disruptions to global shipping.
“I want citizens to understand that there are some things that are within our control and there are some things that are simply not within our control,” she said. “Where those things are outside of our control and they are legitimately impacting what we’re doing here, we will share as we’re doing today, but we will also keep our faith with you with respect to asking you to bear with us.”
The Prime Minister referred to shipping disruptions associated with the Red Sea and reduced transit capacity through the Panama Canal as examples of international developments affecting supply chains.
Despite the delays, Mottley said conditions had improved for most St Lucy residents and maintained that Government would continue the water rate relief until the filtration system was installed.
(RR)
