The National Water Commission (NWC) yesterday vowed to defy extortionists who stopped repairs to the Yallahs pipeline which provides water for treatment plants supplying hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans in Kingston and St Thomas.

According to the state agency, it sought the assistance of the police after “persons demanding work and special treatment for their particular area” obstructed Tank-Weld engineers hired to accelerate the restoration after the pipeline was damaged by Hurricane Dennis earlier this month.

The incident, the NWC said, occurred in the vicinity of River Head near the Intake Works in St Thomas.

“The NWC wishes to again advise the public that the Commission will not give in to extortion,” the NWC said.

“Furthermore, the public is also advised that blocking of one restoration effort will not in any way result in speedier restoration in other areas.”

The 19-mile-long Yallahs pipeline, built in the 1980s, was among several supply systems that were damaged during the passage of Hurricane Dennis, which swiped the island’s north-eastern and northern shores.

Several sections of the main were washed away and both intakes blocked by massive build-up of river stones and debris. The storm also left parts of the concrete support structures in need of reinforcement.

The cross-country pipeline is one of two sources of untreated water for the Mona Reservoir, which stores water treated at Mona or the Hope River Plant. That water serves a large NWC customer base in the Corporate Area.

Yesterday, the NWC’s communications director, Charles Buchanan, told the Observer that the police would be used as back-up to other security measures already in place.

“As far as the NWC is concerned, work has to proceed, and we’ve always done our work in ways that seek to benefit communities,” Buchanan said.

He said the NWC would not allow “misguided persons” to disrupt any water supply project that is important to the country.

He reiterated that the work being done on the pipeline was “equipment-intensive” and therefore did not require an enormous number of labourers.

“Nonetheless, we engage persons from the area where necessary, and we would only do so whenever it is necessary and in the interest of the project,” he added.

Yesterday, the NWC described the incident as an “unfortunate and illegal action (that) is preventing the progress of critical restoration work to this most important part of the nation’s water supply infrastructure”.

“The Yallahs Pipeline is a very critical . cross-country pipeline that is one of the most significant parts of the country’s water infrastructure,” the Commission said in a statement. “Failure to quickly restore this pipeline will effectively disrupt piped water supplies (to) thousands of NWC customers in the Corporate Area and St Thomas.”

The restoration of the Yallahs pipeline, according to the NWC, was important to the restoration of the Llandewey Savannah Water Supply System that serves Llandewey, Ramble and other adjoining communities in St Thomas.

According to the NWC, a total of 114 of its 460 water supply systems were “confirmed to either not be operating or not operating at normal capacity” immediately after Hurricane Dennis.

Yesterday, the Commission said repair works to other supply systems in St Thomas were in progress and were expected to be completed by this weekend.

Up to yesterday, the water company said, it had restored regular supplies to approximately 97 per cent of its customers. Those customers still without water, the NWC said, were the ones being served by the systems that were extensively damaged during the hurricane.