Solutions are in the pipeline for Barbadians who cannot access running water from the Barbados Water Authority because of zone restrictions.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Motley has promised that “in this world, if we can put a man on the moon, then we can surely find a technological and an engineering solution to be able to allow people to access water without contaminating the groundwater with chemical and biological contaminants”.
She made that vow to residents of Corbin’s Road, Ashton Hall, St Peter in an area known as The Zone on Wednesday night, as the Barbados Labour Party mounted its St James North by-election platform in support of candidate Chad Blackman.
She informed them there would be an effort to ensure they accessed running water in the same way that Government would assist people in the Belle and Bellevue, St Michael to connect to the Bridgetown Sewage Treatment Plant and those at Bailey’s Alley “who live right below the shadow of Golden Ridge [Reservoir, St George]”.
Solutions were being looked at as a cost-benefit analysis may show that it would be cheaper to supply water using engineering solutions rather than relocate those residents, Mottley said.
“Your Government is at work for you each and every day, and just because we passed legislation looking at zones A, B, C, D and E, I promised the Cabinet, and I promised when I take over the Water Authority, that we will have to find solutions,” she said.
Mottley said her administration was now doing the cost-benefit analysis of the remedies under consideration, including “reverse osmosis systems”, a communal system developers will have to put in place or household systems the Government will put in place along with the relevant policy and fiscal measures.
“The other thing that I know, even outside of this immediate area of The Zone, is that across the constituency . . . there are acres . . . of land in Zone A that families cannot get to use because of the designation. I am not a scientist, I am not an engineer, but what I do know is that we will cross examine and get to the bottom of it,” Mottley stated.
The Prime Minister also dismissed criticisms that Government failed to fixed roads in the constituency, saying it inherited 2 500 kilometres of roads.
“When the last Government did not do roads at all because they did not have more money in the kitty beyond what was necessary to pay debt and to pay salaries, it meant that if you were doing 30 [to] 40, roads a year, multiply that by about seven or eight, . . . you start with a deficit of over 300 roads when we came in.”
Mottley noted that “in spite of being in an [International Monetary Fund] programme, we have found it possible to be able to do over 16 roads in this constituency of St James North”.
She said the by-election campaign was about moving forward with Blackman who was “equal to . . . anybody else that is already in the Cabinet of Barbados, as I have seen from his performance in the last year”.
