Opposition Senator Floyd Morris says the National Water Commission (NWC) should save water flushed from the Mona dam to be used for irrigation.

“In light of the shortage of water, I am wondering if we can’t find a way, instead of flushing that water and getting it down to the sea, if we can’t find a way to channel it and store it, so that it can be made available for irrigation purposes?” Senator Morris asked.

He was speaking in a debate on the Spring Garden (Irrigation Area) Order, 2020, Resolution in the Senate, on Friday.

“I live close to the Mona Dam…and from time to time the water commission engages in flushing the dam, and that water has to run through the community that I live in. And I am angered every time that I am running in the early morning, and have to pass the gully through which the water is running and hear that gushing water running to waste all the way down to the sea,” the former president of the senate said.

“If we can’t find a way to channel it and store it so that it can be made available for irrigation purposes for anybody who is doing farming in and around the Papine area, or wherever we can find a way to channel that water so that it can be made available for irrigation,” he stated.

“It is a whole lot of water that is going to waste, and even though it is water that they are flushing from the dam, we can still use it for irrigation,” he insisted.

Senator Morris’s suggestion followed an appeal by fellow Opposition member, Senator Sophia Fraser Binns, for the Government to enforce the provisions of the Building Act, to ensure that every house has a system for harvesting rainwater.

She said that the availability of water should be a human rights issue, as people should be able to turn on their taps and get water. The Senator admitted that she was making the appeal after surviving this week without water in her taps for two days.

She recommended that the Government undertake a programme to issue “Black Tanks”, wherever they are necessary, to store water and enforce the provisions of the Building Act for harvesting rainwater.

“I am recommending that, as we move to execute the order, we ensure that every house has a system for harvesting water,” she said, adding that if it can be done, citizens would not have to worry about the water lockoffs to facilitate repair/maintenance works carried out by the NWC from time to time.

The Spring Garden (Irrigation Area) Order, 2020, Resolution follows up on the Government’s decision to declare the area specified in order to be an irrigation area. The newly declared irrigation area includes Buff Bay, Orange Bay, the western side of the Spanish River and the Spring Garden Road.

The order, which was tabled by recently appointed minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation (MEGJC), Senator Leslie Campbell, was fully supported by senators on both sides of the aisle.