Don't drink well water, Davies tells constituents

BY KIMONE THOMPSON Features editor - Sunday thompsonk@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, March 21, 2010

MEMBER of Parliament for St Andrew southern, Omar Davies, is warning his constituents not to drink the water they catch from sources served by wells in the area.

Since extremely dry conditions started affecting the country last year, cutting off water supply to some communities, residents have been tapping into wells at the Tony Spaulding and Boys' Town sports complexes. But Davies said the water should only be used for chores and is not to be ingested because it is untreated.

"The area has a low-pressure problem so the wells in the area used to supplement the NWC supply. But they have been taken out of commission because it has too high a concentration of certain chemicals that they don't pump it into the system because it's not potable," Davies said.

The chemicals, he said, include nitrates which may reduce the amount of oxygen available to the organs of the body.

To alleviate the problems at Charlie Smith High, Davies said the institution will be allowed to source water from the Tony Spaulding well.

"There are connections that will facilitate them getting water from the well at Tony Spaulding stadium. The water is not potable but it can be used for other purposes," he said, stressing that the water shortage was a "a very real problem that affects not just my constituency".

Touching the subject of high unemployment, the MP said the only way the largely unskilled members will be able to access jobs is to raise their skill levels, but said many of them are not availing themselves of the opportunities to do so. As examples, he pointed to the adult continuing education programme, an evening class project on the grounds of Charlie Smith High and the HEART training programme at Boys' Town.

Twenty to 25 per cent of the students who go to the evening classes come from outside the constituency and at least 90 per cent of them are women," he said.

"In the HEART programme, 95 per cent of the students are from outside constituency," he added.

"It's distressing but it's not surprising," noted Davies. "There is a small percentage of artisans in the inner-city but the majority of them are unskilled young people so there can't be any sustained employment programmes... A lot of the employment is related to government activity like fixing gully walls or whatever but the truth is that there has been a cutback, not just in the sense of the CDF (Constituency Development Fund) but in overall activity by government."

Added the MP: "The other difficulty is that the educational levels are low and so options in terms of employment are limited. There has not been a significant amount, not just for my constituency, of state activity so they're really facing it. They're facing a difficult time there."

Regarding improved housing solutions, Davies said it was unlikely that complexes similar to those under the Inner-city Housing project would be built given the high level of unemployment and its corresponding effect on the ability to pay for a mortgage.

One of the things Davies, in his 16 and a half years as MP, is particularly proud of is the reduction of criminal violence in the communities.

"This is the most peaceful I have seen the community. There is some violence but it's between individuals, not community against community," he said

The solution, Davies said, has come through sports and education.

"I work with the schools, we have sports competitions in the schools and education programmes are run across the schools, so there is an interaction there.

"We have a community-based sporting programme called "Bring Back the Love" and like last year we had 32 football teams and 16 netball teams so you have to pay and it's run by team drawn from the communities. The management of the team is responsible for the behaviour of their supporters," he said.

"Once you get people playing and participating with each other, it's very hard to fire guns on somebody you know personally so we've used education and sports," he added, noting that the interaction between Boys' Town and Arnett or even Arnett and Tivoli is unprecedented but welcome.

"I go to Tivoli easily and Mr Seaga comes to Arnett so political divisions no longer play a role," he said further.

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Don't drink well water, Davies tells constituents