NEMO official says country's water supply must be given serious attention
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NEMO official says country's water supply must be given serious attention |
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Contact: RoseMarie Harris
Friday 21 January 2011 – The year 2010 posed a number of challenges to the government and people of Saint Lucia. The country was visited by a severe drought which impacted on every sector followed by the onslaught of Hurricane Tomas, which left behind a trail of destruction to many communities and the island’s infrastructure.
Speaking with the Government Information Service recently, Deputy Director of NEMO Julian Dubois highlighted the many lessons that the nation learnt from the disasters of 2010. “One key lesson would be the considerable vulnerability of our water supply. We commenced the year with a crisis in our potable water supply and ended it with one. The question is can anything be done to mitigate that threat, the threat that the smallest of hazards seem to pose to our water supply? And the answer is a resounding ‘yes we can’ or rather ‘yes we must’. In an effort to build resilience in our homes, in our Communities and ultimately in our Country one of the key resources that we must secure is water.”
Mr. Dubois is calling on individual households and Businesses to design structures that can collect water from their roofs. This water he said can be used for many purposes. “The technology for effectively doing so exists and agencies like the Caribbean Environmental Health Institute (CEHI) and the IWCAM Project of the Mabouya Valley can be consulted for information. We can do so through WASCO, the Forestry Department and other relevant stakeholders engaging in coordinated activities aimed at building resilience at our water catchments so as to avoid landslides above the water catchments and dams.” Dubois says desilting can be done after moderate showers with the assistance of the Ministries of Health, Local Government, Social Transformation, Agriculture, and other collaborating agencies like the Saint Lucia Solid Waste Management Authority to effectively address the solid and liquid waste management issues which threaten our water supply system. |
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