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Left dry by experts
Monday, November 15, 2010
LIKE Mr Donovan Pagon, the People's National Party councillor for the Braes River Division in St Elizabeth, we too are puzzled by the experts' decision to locate a well in what is basically a swamp.
It simply doesn't make sense and defies logic. This impracticality was published in yesterday's edition of the Sunday Observer which reported on some of the discussions at last Thursday's monthly meeting of the St Elizabeth Parish Council. According to the Sunday Observer report, this $90-million water system, which was commissioned in August, is sited just west of Santa Cruz in flood-prone Content.
Initially, it provided great relief for the residents of Santa Cruz who, we are told, had experienced chronic water problems for many years.
However, since late September when the island was lashed by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Nicole, flood waters have resulted in the authorities taking the plant out of service due to poor water quality.
The upshot is that residents and operators of businesses in this bustling and fast-growing town have been subjected to the indignity and great inconvenience of water shortages for more than a month now.
Even as we note the efforts of the National Water Commission to repair an old well at its Burnt Ground site in order that the people of Santa Cruz may have access to piped water, we hope the relevant authorities have not ignored Councillor Pagon's reminder that this problem will recur in future rainy seasons.
Implicit in Mr Pagon's observation is the need for the authorities to correct this grave error as the mayor of Mayor of Black River and chairman of the St Elizabeth Parish Council Mr Jeremy Palmer so correctly labelled it.
Mayor Palmer, we believe, makes a legitimate point by stating that it was not his belief that the experts "did sufficient due diligence or looked at the history of flooding in that area" before establishing the well.
But even as we share the mayor's apparent amazement at the decision, we wonder whether he -- being a man who should have considerable knowledge of his parish — had not seen its folly when, as he told us, he attended the water system's opening ceremony.
In fact, we would have thought that all political representatives for the Santa Cruz area would have made it their business to be kept abreast of developments in their town, thereby placing themselves in a position to ensure that blunders such as this are not made.
It seems to us — admittedly from a distance — that the current situation reflects a lack of proper pre-project investigation including consultation on the part of the water experts with people from the community who could have prevented the authorities the present embarrassment. It also reflects woefully inadequate political representation and leadership.
The need now is for the authorities to provide a water system that can adequately meet the requirements of the people of Santa Cruz. The challenge we suspect they will have is in attracting the funding to embark on such a project, given that they have already wasted $90 million.
It is our hope, though, that they will overcome this dilemma — for the sake of the long-suffering people of Santa Cruz.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...xperts_8153099
Monday, November 15, 2010
LIKE Mr Donovan Pagon, the People's National Party councillor for the Braes River Division in St Elizabeth, we too are puzzled by the experts' decision to locate a well in what is basically a swamp.
It simply doesn't make sense and defies logic. This impracticality was published in yesterday's edition of the Sunday Observer which reported on some of the discussions at last Thursday's monthly meeting of the St Elizabeth Parish Council. According to the Sunday Observer report, this $90-million water system, which was commissioned in August, is sited just west of Santa Cruz in flood-prone Content.
Initially, it provided great relief for the residents of Santa Cruz who, we are told, had experienced chronic water problems for many years.
However, since late September when the island was lashed by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Nicole, flood waters have resulted in the authorities taking the plant out of service due to poor water quality.
The upshot is that residents and operators of businesses in this bustling and fast-growing town have been subjected to the indignity and great inconvenience of water shortages for more than a month now.
Even as we note the efforts of the National Water Commission to repair an old well at its Burnt Ground site in order that the people of Santa Cruz may have access to piped water, we hope the relevant authorities have not ignored Councillor Pagon's reminder that this problem will recur in future rainy seasons.
Implicit in Mr Pagon's observation is the need for the authorities to correct this grave error as the mayor of Mayor of Black River and chairman of the St Elizabeth Parish Council Mr Jeremy Palmer so correctly labelled it.
Mayor Palmer, we believe, makes a legitimate point by stating that it was not his belief that the experts "did sufficient due diligence or looked at the history of flooding in that area" before establishing the well.
But even as we share the mayor's apparent amazement at the decision, we wonder whether he -- being a man who should have considerable knowledge of his parish — had not seen its folly when, as he told us, he attended the water system's opening ceremony.
In fact, we would have thought that all political representatives for the Santa Cruz area would have made it their business to be kept abreast of developments in their town, thereby placing themselves in a position to ensure that blunders such as this are not made.
It seems to us — admittedly from a distance — that the current situation reflects a lack of proper pre-project investigation including consultation on the part of the water experts with people from the community who could have prevented the authorities the present embarrassment. It also reflects woefully inadequate political representation and leadership.
The need now is for the authorities to provide a water system that can adequately meet the requirements of the people of Santa Cruz. The challenge we suspect they will have is in attracting the funding to embark on such a project, given that they have already wasted $90 million.
It is our hope, though, that they will overcome this dilemma — for the sake of the long-suffering people of Santa Cruz.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...xperts_8153099