MANDEVILLE, Manchester — If all goes according to plan, a $500-million programme scheduled to start in the final quarter of this year should resolve Mandeville’s water problems over the next few years at least, says Water Minister Horace Chang.

“We are talking about an additional six million gallons for the Greater Mandeville area which should provide adequate water over the medium term, but probably not beyond five years,” Chang told the Sunday Observer.

The minister was responding to questions following an address to the 50th anniversary awards ceremony for the Hood-Daniel Well Company at the Golf View Hotel in Mandeville last Monday.

Chang said the project would involve the opening of two additional wells at Pepper in St Elizabeth just below that parish’s eastern border with Manchester, as well as improvement of distribution systems, including replacement of piping and pumps.

The well fields at Pepper provide most of the woefully inadequate 2.3 million gallons of water which flows to Mandeville daily, with Porus in South Eastern Manchester, being the other major source of water.

At the best of times Mandeville, which is over 2,000 feet above sea level and has no surface water, suffers from serious water shortages and daily lockoffs. The situation has been aggravated this year by mechanical problems afflicting delivery up the Spur Tree Hill from Pepper and a worse-than-usual seasonal drought which has dried up rain water catchment and storage systems.

Chang told the Sunday Observer that plans — to be announced in due course — were also in the making for other areas of the parish, including the severely affected southern region.

As he had indicated at another function at the same venue a month earlier, Chang told a large audience at the function that the Government was committed to ensuring that adequate water was provided to facilitate Mandeville’s growth.

While the bauxite/alumina industry in the parish had fallen away, Mandeville had tremendous potential for growth in the services and educational sector particularly, he said.

Claiming that Jamaica had more than enough water to meet the demands of its citizens and that the “real problem” was chronic under-investment over many years, Chang said the Government had committed $30 billion to water improvement across the island.

This includes the US$211-million or approximately J$19 billion Jamaica Water Supply Improvement Project which is expected to bring about major improvement of Jamaica’s water supply system over the next two years.

Noting that the North Coast had enough water to easily supply all of Jamaica and that there was enough in St Elizabeth’s aquifers to supply that parish, “all of Manchester and much of the rest of Jamaica”, Chang said the long drought had helped to focus national attention on the need to deal with the problem once and for all.

Chang praised Hood-Daniel Well Company for its contribution to Jamaica’s water sector over the last half-a-century. He predicted an even greater role for the Spur Tree-based company as the Government and the National Water Commission move to expand the network of wells.

Seventeen current and former employees received awards at the function for service ranging from 15-42 years. Hood-Daniel and Jamaica Wells are the only two well drilling companies in Jamaica.