THE United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Rural Enterprise, Agriculture & Community Tourism (REACT) Project, is assisting the National Water Commission (NWC) to increase public awareness of water quality issues and the importance of preserving watershed areas in the Kingston Metropolitan Area (KMA).

Under the programme, USAID’s REACT programme will work with the NWC’s Corporate Public Relations Department to develop public awareness materials that will inform and educate the public about turbidity problems and what they can do to help protect the areas’ water sources. Among the communications materials that are being developed include outreach information to explain turbidity, how it occurs, how it impacts the public’s drinking water supply, and the importance of source water protection in Jamaica’s watersheds; and, an interactive watershed model activity, which will visually demonstrate key watershed concepts and convey a basic understanding of how turbidity occurs and the connection between human activity in watersheds and turbidity in rivers.

The programme is being implemented in collaboration with a cooperative demonstration project funded and managed jointly by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Centre for Disease Control, and the Pan American Health Organisation to develop a water safety plan for the STWTP.

The USAID/NWC initiative is a part of a wider Memorandum of Understanding signed earlier this month by USAID and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), to implement programmes under the Clean Water for People Initiative.

Aimed at providing safe water and sanitation to the world’s poor, improved watershed management and increased productivity of water, the Clean Water for People Initiative was launched in September 2002 by the two governments at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. The following year, the two governments through the USAID and JBIC selected four pilot countries to implement joint activities under the programme – Jamaica, the Philippines, Indonesia and India.

The JBIC is assisting the Government of Jamaica to carry out activities under the Water Supply Project with funding for the rehabilitation of the Spanish Town Water Treatment Plant (STWTP), limestone aquifer, alluvial aquifer wells, booster pumps and reservoirs/tanks and the development of new groundwater sources for Greater Spanish Town. This is very important since surface water from the Rio Cobre River and water from the limestone aquifer and alluvial aquifer are the main water sources for the KMA.