WESTERN BUREAU – A severe drought, coupled with the National Water Commission’s Martha Brae treatment plant pumping below capacity, has left scores of Trelawny residents with low water pressure and/or no water at all.

Some of the affected areas are Stewart Castle, sections of Duncans, Samuel Prospect, Brampton, Rio Bueno, Green Park, Maxfield and Johnson Hill.

Poultry farmer, Phyllis Allen complained that she had lost most of the flock of birds she recently bought from a farm store as a result of the water woes.

“Mi buy 200 chicken and lose most of them because mi could not get any water at the pipe and the little mi store in the tank run out,” she said.

Another resident, Alvin Campbell, also bemoaned the lack of water in his community.

“The time is terribly hot and the plants are withering, we are losing our precious flowers because there is not sufficient water to water them as frequently as we desire. I think that I might have to move back my family to England,” Campbell said.

Community members want the NWC to fix the problem.

According to the utility company’s public relations manager Lisa Golding, the Martha Brae plant is in need of upgrading. But work will not begin until later this year.

“The plant is old and that is one of the reasons why it is slated for an improvement project, which is going to start later this year,” she told the Observer.

The old pump, Golding said, has not being able to produce enough water to serve NWC customers in the areas it serves.

“We suffer from problems when we have rain turbidity, which is a regular rainfall issue. The river gets muddy and it is hard to process the amount we need – so we have perpetually suffered from a lot of different types of maladies because the plant needs rehabilitation,” she explained.

Last week, Cabinet approved a proposal for the National Water Commission to enter into a $2.4 billion joint-venture partnership with the French company Sogea Satom for the Martha Brae/Harmony Hall water supply project. That project will support development along the north coast from Falmouth in Trelawny to Port Maria, St Mary.

Water and housing minister Donald Buchanan made the announcement at a post-Cabinet press briefing last week at Jamaica House. He explained, then, that the project would involve the refurbishing of the Martha Brae treatment plant to increase the output from four million gallons per day to six million gallons daily.