Spotlight on trucked water
SAVANNA-LA-MAR, Westmoreland — Concerned about what it said are long-standing challenges with the quality of potable water being trucked to consumers, the Westmoreland Health Department is now moving to regulate the supply.
“On the matter of water quality, we had a situation recently in parish when the NWC (National Water Commission) went on strike and out of that we realised that we have a situation… which has been a long-standing one. That is in terms of the trucking of drinking water,” said chief public health inspector for Westmoreland, Steve Morris.
He was speaking at Thursday’s regular monthly meeting of the parish’s municipal corporation.
“The health department, at this time, is proposing to regulate how water is trucked in this parish. We will be using the Public Health Food Handling Regulation which defines food to include water. We’re going to be using that regulation to regularise how water is trucked in this parish,” he stated.
He later told the Jamaica Observer that the move was triggered by complaints about water quality during the May 10-12 period of the NWC strike that left consumers scrambling for the commodity.
“We had a lot of complaints of untreated water — that is unsafe water — being trucked to hotels and schools and other institutions during that period. What happened was that the NWC loading bay was also shut down so people had to get water from unsafe sources,” he said, adding that while it had not been an extensive health issue, it was still cause for concern.
Morris said the public will have a role to play as health officials move to put the new measures in place.
“We will be having a sensitisation meeting on Thursday the 14th of June at the Wesley Methodist Church Hall [in Savanna-la-Mar] starting at 10:00 am. We are inviting water truckers and other stakeholders to the meeting where we’re going to outline exactly how we’re going to put that proposal into effect,” he said.
“We’re asking you to attend this meeting to get sensitised because this is something that we’re going to be using the law to guide,” he urged.
