THE National Water Commission (NWC) yesterday resumed repair work on the Yallahs pipeline, a day after its contractor, Tankweld, was forced to discontinue repair works following threats.

According to the NWC, the police on Monday cleared blockades that were mounted to prevent the contractor from proceeding with the restoration work in the vicinity of River Head near the Intake Works in St Thomas.

“In a meeting with residents of River Head this morning (yesterday), the National Water Commission outlined the scope, importance and urgency of the emergency restoration work and emphasised its commitment to do the project, like its other projects, in ways that benefit and protect the community,” the NWC said in a statement yesterday.

Yesterday, NWC’s corporate public relations manager Charles Buchanan said the River Head residents pledged their support to the project and “said they were not aware or in support of any extortion attempts and vowed not to allow outside elements to do so”.

The Yallahs pipeline is a critical 19-mile long, cross-country pipeline that delivers raw water from the Negro and Yallahs rivers to the Mona Reservoir in Kingston as well as to the Llandewey Savannah Water Supply, serving Llandewey, Ramble and other adjoining areas in St Thomas.

Yesterday, the NWC said failure to quickly restore this pipeline would disrupt piped water supplies to thousands of NWC customers in the Corporate Area and in St Thomas.

The commission said yesterday that the Goat Ridge Water Supply System, serving Ramble, Goatridge, Windsor Forest, River Head, and sections of Llandewey also suffered significant damage in the recent hurricanes. Pipelines, it said, were dislocated and sections washed away, the intakes blocked and access to critical areas of the system blocked, among other damages sustained. Like in a few other areas across the country, restoration work was still in progress and is expected to be completed by this weekend.