BLACK RIVER, St Elizabeth — Opposition Leader Andrew Holness has revived an age-old idea frowned upon by environmentalists and others, that water from the Black River should be used to irrigate the arid plains of St Elizabeth to boost agriculture.

Speaking at a recent Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) “Poverty to Prosperity” session in Black River, Holness said a lack of vision had led to St Elizabeth’s chronic water problems.

“St Elizabeth does not have a reliable water system that supplies irrigation and domestic water. It is sad, because St Elizabeth is the parish with the largest body of land water, the Black River,” Holness told Labourites.

“It requires a government with vision, foresight and courage, to say let us take water from the Black River through canals to the plains of St Elizabeth and irrigate it so that the farmers can produce,” said Holness.

Down the decades, leading Jamaicans, including former prime minister, Michael Manley in the 1970s, have occasionally talked about using the Black River — which feeds the lower and upper Black River Morass — for widespread irrigation.

The idea has never found favour with environmentalists. They point out that such an initiative could undermine the delicately balanced eco-system in the Black River Lower Morass — which has been protected under the Ramsar Convention since 1998 — as well as the coastal marine environment. Signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, the Ramsar International Convention provides for the conservation and sustainable use of important wetlands.

Protected under that convention since 1998, the Black River Lower Morass, said to be 6,075 hectares (15,000 acres) in size, is described by environmental experts as a “natural sponge” crucial to soaking up excess water and mitigating flooding on the St Elizabeth plains.

Environmentalists say the Black River Upper Morass (1,762 hectares) has already been largely undermined by human habitation and economic activity especially over the last 50 years.

The lower morass is of direct economic importance, partly because of its plentiful fish, crabs and shrimp, but increasingly for its attractiveness to tourists.

On a daily basis, boatloads of tourists travel the lower reaches of the Black River to experience what is said to be the largest freshwater wetland in Jamaica and the islands of the English-speaking Caribbean.

The river and the connected morass are home to the famed American crocodile and numerous species of endemic birds and plants.

Rated as the second longest river on the island, the Black River runs southerly from mountains in the north of St Elizabeth. It feeds the Upper and Lower Black River Morass before entering the sea in the historic town of Black River which is the parish capital.

Planners who visualise the town as a potential centre of growth for south coast tourism say the tourist boat rides on the river would need to be an integral part of that growth.

When contacted last week, Peter Knight, head of Jamaica’s environmental watchdog, the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), said any move to use the Black River as a major source of irrigation would have to be approached with great caution and only after detailed study.

Very importantly, Knight said, people needed to understand that unrestricted removal of fresh water now entering the sea from the Black River would have disastrous consequences for the marine environment.

“A lot of people seem to believe that when fresh river water flows into the sea it is being wasted. That is not so. There is a symbiotic relationship between the river and the sea,” Knight said.

According to Knight, it was conceivable that “a percentage flow” from the river could be taken off for irrigation or domestic purposes, but he re-emphasised that such a move could only take place after very detailed study.

NEPA’s Andrea Donaldson agreed with Knight and made the additional point that any significant reduction in “water levels” in the river itself could negatively affect the ecosystem as well as economic activity on the river, including tourists’ boating.

In expanding on the JLP’s plans for a comprehensive water policy, Holness told Labourites at the Black River meeting that wells could be used to deal with the parish’s domestic water needs.

“It takes vision to say let us set water as priority to make the investment to put down wells and bring water to your homes,” Holness said. Additionally, he said, the longstanding practice of private rain water harvesting and storage could be further developed to stabilise domestic water supplies.

Less than half of St Elizabeth’s households get running water from Jamaica’s publicly run water supplier, the National Water Commission (NWC).

And though St Elizabeth is consistently among the most productive farming areas in Jamaica, often described as the ‘breadbasket parish’, its southern half is also among the driest sections of the island. South St Elizabeth farmers routinely rely on unique conservationist, dry farming methods to get their crops to thrive. But over

the last two years

especially, droughts conditions described as among the worst in Jamaica’s recorded history, have largely defeated even those efforts.

Holness said a future JLP government run by him was committed to making water distribution a “priority” as part of what he termed a “triangle of growth: water, agriculture and housing”.

Studies had shown that largely because of an inadequacy of water, St Elizabeth’s agricultural output was 40 per cent below capacity, Holness said.

“You (St Elizabeth’s farmers) could be producing much more than you are doing now, melons, tomatoes, vegetables, peppers… the main thing stopping that is proper water supply system for irrigation and domestic use. Right now, farmers have to be paying $20,000 for water for their crops. A JLP government would stop that by making investment in water.

“Water would make St Elizabeth grow, imagine if St Elizabeth was producing 40 per cent more than it is producing now. It would mean that we would have approximately a half per cent more to the (national) growth rate…,” Holness said.