A fresh, clean scent of soap, tinged with delicate perfume and aftershave, wafts through the air as groups of men women and children go about their business inside the community of Grange Lane in St Catherine.

But their warm smiles and friendly greetings disguise a dirty little secret which they have been forced to live with for the last four decades.

Every day, for the last 40 years these residents have been forced to scrounge around for potable water that is not always easily available to them.

Indeed, these residents have worked hard to maintain good hygiene and good health — a difficult feat, considering that on occasions several of them are forced to take baths or do their laundry in a community canal teeming with garbage, human waste and rotting animals.

If they are lucky, they may draw water from an uncovered well, catch it by the bucket at neighbouring Morris Park, or rely on Rapid Response units from the Ministry of Water & Works to fill their tanks.

It is hard to imagine

It is hard to believe that this community, which is located between Morris Park in Portmore and Lakes Pen in Spanish Town — on property leased from the Jamaica Railway Corporation, — has been without piped water for at least 40 years. The settlement is also located a few metres from Caribbean Estates, a gated community being developed on the outskirts of Portmore.

Vellon Daley, who has seven-month-old twins, told the Sunday Observer she is ashamed and embarrassed at what she has to do to get water to make her children’s formula, wash their clothes and bathe them.

“I use the well water and put bleach in it,” Daley confided, adding, “Lawd mi embarrassed”.

Daley said she believes that the untreated water that members of the community are forced to use is directly responsible for the cases of ringworm, liverspots and other skin conditions, especially common in children from the area.

Health Minister Horace Dalley said the situation in Grange Lane warrants attention from health authorities.

“The community is at tremendous risk if they use the canal and draw from an uncovered well, but one of the things we can do from the ministry is to send somebody out there to test and to chlorinate the water,” he told the Sunday Observer after a workshop geared towards establishing regulations for the quality of drinking-water at the Jamaica Pegasus last Thursday.

But Mark Sangster, a resident in his “early forties”, pointed out that the problems facing the community are not new. Sangster told the Sunday Observer that he was born in Grange Lane and doesn’t remember ever having piped water.

For her part, president of the Grange Lane Citizens’ Association, Michelle Williams, said the residents were tired of what she described as an inhumane and degrading situation.

“Mi neck lean jus fi carry water. Wi calling on sista P. She ah woman so she mus understand. Wi have pickney an wi need water fi feed dem and bathe dem,” Williams pleaded.

“Wi want running water because we have to buy water from the truck, and sometime dem don’t come and sometimes dem only give some people water,” said Clara Cooper, an elderly resident who has been living in Grange Lane since 1975.

“One time wi did get some water and I don’t know what happen. A dump was up the top there and [because of that] the pipe got damaged and from that we nuh have none,” Cooper complained.

The residents say they have tried several means of getting water piped to their community over the years, including demonstrating and blocking the road. Up to now, however, their pleas have gone unanswered.

“It’s getting so bad now that the new people [residents of Morris Park] dem a call wi squatters. Dem ah call we, people weh live here 40/50 years and weh ah pay dem lease, squatters. The community people tired of it. Wi demonstrate how much time,” Williams fumed.

They told the Sunday Observer that they have also had discussions with member of parliament for the area, Fitz Jackson, but that nothing tangible has been forthcoming.

“We are now in the process of sending letters to Mr Jackson, Fenton Ferguson [state minister in charge of water in the housing, water, transport ministry] and the prime minister,” added the leader of the citizen’s group.

“A pure promise di MP a mek,” said Maxine Scott, public relations officer for the association.

Williams and Scott admitted that minister Jackson visited the community about two weeks ago and took measurements for the laying of pipes.

Jackson, who has been the MP for southern St Catherine since 1994, confirmed that there were plans to provide the community with piped water. He said the reason Grange Lane was without piped water was that there was a shortage of water in the “entire St Catherine plains”.

“I have met with them and I am making the pipes available. I consider that my contribution, but I am yet to finalise the plans with the private [water] supplier. The pipes should be delivered within a week or two. When that is done, and depending on the people’s agreement with the supplier’s terms, then they’ll get water. I don’t want to commit myself…because it’s a process, not an event,” he told the Sunday Observer late last week.

Jackson said the need arose for a private supplier because the NWC did not have the resources to supply additional areas. For this reason, he said, approval for the new housing developments of Caribbean Estates and Morris Park were only granted because they are receiving the commodity from private entities.

But Scott is adamant that if the politician’s promises come to nothing, she will withhold her vote.

“No water, no vote,” she told the Sunday Observer.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, 29 per cent of Jamaicans do not have access to piped water. Additionally, figures out of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) show that 20 per cent of the country’s population of roughly 2.7 million do not have access to safe drinking water.