Cry for water

by Carlos AtwellEVERY MORNING for the past three years, residents in a section of St Martin’s, St Philip, have been waking up to almost dry taps.Marilyn Linton calls it an “ongoing tragedy” and turned to the SATURDAY SUN for help.“This has been going on for too long. It’s no fun getting up without water and having to bathe out of buckets,” she said.Linton produced a copy of a letter dated June 14 which she hand-delivered to the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) for the attention of general manager Denis Yearwood and executive chairman Arni Walters.In that letter, she detailed speaking to assistant general manager Hector Marshall and staff at Hampton Pumping Station as well as two BWA operatives who she said tested the water pressure in the area on November 16, 2009, and reported it was “unusually low”.The letter stated the water flowed normally again around 9 a.m.“I also spoke to [deputy general manager John] Mwansa but everyone is passing the buck. This is 2010 and we pay our water bills. A lot of Bajans suffer in silence but three years is ridiculous,” she said.Funeral director Clarence Best agreed. He said water was vital to his business but he had no choice but to wait until the water returned or to catch water the day before.Another resident, who requested anonymity said he felt like he lived “in a desert”.“Just bare air comes from the taps in the morning until around 10 a.m. on weekdays and it was even worse on Sundays. I think it is disgraceful in 2010,” he said.Dean Edghill described getting his family ready for work and school in the morning as “something else”.“We have to get up and bathe between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. because after that it is a trickle. It is rough when the children are going to school but it is worse on weekends when everyone is home.“I don’t know if the problem is that the BWA needs to put in bigger mains, but I don’t think this is right because we pay our water bills, so we should be able to get up in the morning and have water flowing from our taps,” he said.However, there is one man in the area, Arlington Bushelle, who has no problem with water. But that’s only because he purchased and installed a water tank and pump.“If I hadn’t, I would be at square one just like everybody else. Before, if you didn’t get a bath by 6 a.m., you would have to wait until 8 a.m. and I have the children to get to school, so I used to put them in the shower first and I went to relatives to bathe if I had to,” he said.Attempts to contact the BWA general manager were unsuccessful.