Pain in the pipes

Residents in Corbin’s Road, Ashton Hall, St Peter are pleading for the third burst pipe in a month in their district to be fixed as soon as possible.Yesterday a number of them called the WEEKEND NATION to ask for assistance in highlighting another leakage which was only a few yards away from one repaired two days after it was highlighted in the May 16 Sunday Sun. That had been running for a few months.One man who lives close to the leak said it had been burst since last Saturday, and despite calls to the Barbados Water Authority (BWA), no one had come to fix it, resulting in gallons of water going down the drain all week.Ironically, a crew from the Drainage Division of the Ministry of the Environment, Water Resources and Drainage was clearing debris from a small canal nearby yesterday morning. While the three-member team was loading dried leaves and old coconut branches from an area just east of the canal, valuable wasted water was flowing down the drain on the other side. Earlier this month, another burst pipe further along the area commonly called “The Zone”, was fixed by BWA personnel two days after being published. The water there had been running for two weeks.Efforts to get confirmation from the BWA yesterday on if it had received reports of the burst main, were unsuccessful.Over the past few months Barbados has been experiencing a drought. As a result, the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) has appealed to Barbadians not to waste water. The BWA itself, however, must also pay attention, since there are a number of burst pipes throughout the island.