DLP: Invest in desal plants

The Democratic Labour Party strongly believes that cries for water should be a thing of the past in 2021.

Vice-President and Spokesperson on Agriculture and the Environment, Andre Worrell, is therefore urging the Mia Mottley government to retract its political stance and invest in desalination plants and additional water storage capacity.   

In a press statement yesterday, Worrell recalled that within a few months of taking office, this administration – through the then Minister of Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams – ruled out the possibility of more desalination plants.

“At that time,  Abrahams said, ‘Desalinated water sourced directly from the sea costs $4 a unit, so if we bring more desalination plants online, our annual water supply expenses would increase by over $100 million, and we simply cannot afford that’.   

“The Democratic Labour Party disagreed with the costassumptions which were made by the Minister then and we still disagree now. The government simply needs to look at the desalinated water cost globally. These costs vary within a range of US$0.50 to US$1.20 per cubic meter. In any case, the lack of access to potable water is costing this country more than $100 million in revenue annually when we consider its constraints on housing development, productivity, and the impact on the well-being of those affected,” he pointed out.

The BLP government, according to Worrell, has so far raised close to $1 billion in loans during the Covid-19 Pandemic. He said seeking a loan to construct the desalination plants should be part of the stimulus package, and advised that these projects would be labour intensive and would help to eradicate a major developmental challenge.

However, he admits that the plants alone are not the solution, also calling for government to invest in large water storage reservoirs.

“These large reservoirs, strategically located across the country so that they can gravity feed the system in cases of an emergency, would be useful in times like this where the BWA has to cut back on pumping or production at the desal plants. The reservoirs can only be kept filled if we increase our access to potable water through desalination.”

Moreover, while supporting the appeal by the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) to persons not to waste water as they try to clean up the ash, the DLP Vice President said that at the same time, they empathise with Barbadians as being able to wash down the ash is the only sure way of getting it under control.

“However, we do recognise that residents in areas such as St. Lucy, St. Peter, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, St. Joseph, and St. John are facing severe water outages. They do not have the luxury at this time of throwing a bucket of water on the ash, as they have none,” Worrell said.

The DLP is also appealing to the BWA to continue to do what they can to assist residents in these areas by sending out the tankers and filling community tanks. In fact, he is of the view that government should immediately look at subsidising the cost of water tanks and pumps to make them more affordable to households, especially as many are struggling financially.

“We support the efforts to deploy groups to clean up the roads. These groups should be quickly deployed to communities dealing with the ongoing water crisis,” he added.