Dear Editor,

For many years, Jamaica has suffered from recurring annual droughts and water shortages. These are most severe on the south coast and particularly so in the Kingston metropolitan region. Every year there are statements by whoever is the minister of water about impending droughts, and often there are announcements about new water sources being tapped to bring additional supplies into the capital, and that this will solve our problems. Unfortunately, this never seems to happen and citizens continue to put up with restrictions and inconvenience year after year.

Here are some projections for the medium term taken from a November 2013 Green Paper on Climate Change produced by the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change:

“The mean annual temperature for Jamaica is projected to increase between 0.7 to 1.8 degrees Celsius by 2050. Greater levels of sedimentation [is expected] in reservoirs and dams and sediment transport to coastal resources as soil erosion increases with the greater incidence of more intense rainfall and hurricane events. Changes in temperature are expected to result in adverse shifts in climatic conditions for agricultural cultivation at certain altitudes. Increasing degradation and destruction of watersheds caused by the displacement of traditional activities/livelihood such as farming. Shortage of water during periods of prolonged droughts and projected rainfall changes range from -44 per cent to +18 per cent by 2050.”

What plans do we have in place to mitigate these changes and to minimise their impact? Here are a few more facts about water production in Kingston & St Andrew (KSA) taken from a 2011 NWC document on their website: “NWC water production facilities provide approximately 18,250 million gallons of water per year to the water supply network in KSA. Physical losses amount to some 9,672 million gallons per year, that is 44 per cent of the average annual production. Revenued water averages 7,002 million gallons per year, which is 45.9 per cent of the water produced. [About] 946 million gallons of water per year is attributed to unauthorised consumption (ie six per cent of production), due largely to illegal connections. The average asset age of the water supply network is in excess of 50 years.”

While I don’t profess to be an expert on these matters, it would seem to me that, based on the above, there are a few common sense steps we could take in the short term to improve our water supply: Forget wasting scarce resources on tapping new sources of water outside of the KSA; de-silt the two major dams serving the KSA region; target reducing the 9,672 million gallons lost per year by say 10-15 per cent or 967 to 1,450 million gallons per year by replacing old, leaking pipes on a phased basis. Stop wasting money on non-productive programmes, like road bushing exercises under JEEP, and instead start an intensive reforestation programme with a mix of fast-growing species and hardwood trees using the same labour force. Increase the number of forest rangers to protect our watershed.

Why do we have a Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change? What is its function? If they can’t do the job, shouldn’t we close it or at least reduce its remit to being just the Ministry of Land? After all, the IMF has mandated that we need to reduce our public sector wage bill.

Trevor Blair

tblair_ja@yahoo.com