Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation (MEGJC) Senator Pearnel Charles Jr. says water regulation is necessary because the commodity is not enough.

Minister Charles said the forecast, by the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, is for below-normal rainfall and severe drying which will affect the storage levels at the dams and catchment tanks. This means the National Water Commission (NWC) will have less distributive capacity.

He emphasized that “If we don’t get enough, we won’t have enough to give, therefore in order to maintain a particular standard, regulations are put in place”.

He was speaking at a Press Conference convened by the MEGJC at Jamaica House yesterday (Thursday, February 6, 2020).

“This means that persons will have less access to water at times based on the regulations, but more importantly the regulations will allow the NWC to reduce the loss of water from the distribution network due to leaks”, he said.

Government outlines strategies for Drought Management

In outlining the drought mitigation efforts Minister Charles says the immediate and short term plans by the Ministry and its water agencies include:

• The procurement of 14 additional water trucks to assist in the distribution of water to the hardest-hit areas,
• Revised operational procedures for payment to truckers,
• Distribution of black storage tanks,
• Upgrade of major pipeline infrastructure in the Corporate Area,
• Continued work on the NWC’s non-revenue water programme,
• Renovation of Catchment tanks by the Rural Water Supply Limited,
• Retrofitting several schools with rainwater harvesting systems, and;
• Increased regulation.

In the meantime, Head of the Meteorological Service of Jamaica, Evan Thompson, explained that as at December 31, 2019, several parishes were experiencing drought conditions while several others have reported drier than normal conditions.

In noting that the country entered 2020 with a deficit, Mr Thompson explained that December 2019 experienced closer to normal conditions… “But normal does not make up for a deficit before and we would need above normal to make up for a deficit”.

While noting that the Branch is in the process of collecting and analysing data for the month of January, Mr Thompson indicated that “January did not produce any excess of rainfall across the country so it’s unlikely that we’ll see any reversal of what we have seen going into December 2019”.

For his part, Senator Aubyn Hill, Chairman of the Board of Commissioners said that the NWC is being proactive with the management of the country’s water resources adding that to this end the entity has taken several steps to ensure that customers will have water throughout the dry period.

“Help us conserve; help us reuse if you can; and help us recycle when you can. It is all of us who are responsible”, Senator Hill implored.

He said the entity has been continuously monitoring the Hermitage Dam and the Mona Reservoir which have been declining, which is not unusual at this time of the year.