The Manchester Parish Council yesterday heard that a staggering 98 per cent of the parish’s 61 water catchment tanks are uncovered, posing a major health risk from increased levels of bacteria in the parish’s water supply.

According to Wayne Mitchell, the local government body’s deputy superintendent of road and works, the danger exists because the chlorine used to treat the water weakens quickly under direct sunlight.

“When we do the [chlorine residual test] in the morning, by the afternoon the following day, basically the results are pretty low…,” Mitchell told the council’s Board of Health and Environmental Sanitation meeting.

“So we have prepared estimates and forwarded to the Ministry [of Local Government and Environment] for funding to have all these tanks covered, because what you find is that [in] the tanks that are covered, the water quality is much better than in the ones that are not covered,” he added.

The meeting was called in response to environmental health reports for November and December 2006 presented by the Public Health Department.

The reports said that of 135 chlorine samples taken in November, 36 showed an absence of chlorine in the catchment tanks. Of 123 samples taken the following month, 52 showed an absence of chlorine.

In the bacteriological analysis of water in the parish, the report said of 61 samples taken in the month of November, 12 indicated unsafe levels of bacteria, while 49 were safe. For December, of 64 samples, 17 indicated unsafe levels of bacteria.

Mitchell denied, however, that some catchment facilities go untreated altogether, regardless of whether they are covered. He said transportation problems in December lengthened the usual two-week turnaround time in which the tanks are treated to three weeks.

While Mitchell did not give a figure for the estimates submitted to the ministry, he said the request was for a “substantial amount of funds” totaling millions of dollars.

“The council at present can’t undertake that expenditure, so we had requested assistance from the ministry,” Mitchell said.

Government statistics show that more than 190,000 people live in Manchester, whose capital, Mandeville, has proved a popular retirement town for older Jamaicans who lived abroad for years.