Gustav causes water woes in St Mary

Thursday, September 04, 2008
Jamaica Observer

THE water shortage in St Mary, triggered by last week's passage of Tropical Storm Gustav, has reached crisis proportion and was likely to worsen with the resumption of schools, according to National Water Commission (NWC) area manager for St Mary and Portland, Anthony Cornwall.

Cornwall told the Observer that with the NWC concentrating on trucking water to the critical areas in East Portland, the commission would be stretched in trying to find enough units to serve the vast number of communities in St Mary without water, in addition to the schools.

"It's really a crisis over here," Cornwall said in a telephone interview from East Portland. The NWC, he said, had only one truck and two Rapid Response units for use in St Mary.
"We need twice the number of trucks we currently have," Cornwall said. "It is a crisis, we need to sit down and work it out," he added.

Areas without regular water supply included Highgate,
Richmond, Rosend, Islington, Robins Bay, White Hall and several smaller communities leading off.

With Iterboreal and Agualta Vale pumps out of service, only the pump at Port Maria is supplying water.

In the absence of enough Rapid Response trucks, institutions wishing to hire vehicles to truck water could access the commodity from the NWC plant at Port Maria, Cornwall disclosed.

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