SEVERAL residents of at least seven communities in St Catherine are fuming that a year after a water supply system was commissioned for their benefit they are still awaiting connection to their homes, and those who are connected say they are experiencing irregular service.

The more than $125-million Watermount Water Supply Project was introduced with much fanfare, with a promise to provide the precious liquid to approximately 7,000 residents in the communities of Back Pasture, Cudjoe’s Hill, Old Works, Watermount, Barry, Pedro and Mendez.

It was handed over to the St Catherine Municipal Corporation but claims of poor maintenance and limited roll-out of the service have emerged in recent weeks.

On February 14, when the Jamaica Observer visited the communities, residents openly expressed frustration.

“No water don’t come in the lane… a pipe is there in the lane mouth but it nuh reach in the lane. They said we should not connect anything to the pipe because they are coming to connect it so we can get water, but all now we can’t get any water,” Norris Jennings, a resident of Back Pasture, told the Sunday Observer while pointing to the pipe on the main used to serve the lane in which he lives.

He explained that people receiving water live on or close to the main roads, while the majority of lanes in the community lack direct access to potable water due to the absence of connected pipes. Jennings said his wife, and most residents living in the lanes, paid the connection fee required from last year, expecting pipes to be connected, but they are still waiting.

Another female resident from the Back Pasture community, who requested anonymity, said she has to ask residents who have access to water for permission to collect some.

“Is people yard I have to go to get water, and they are frowning. For those who live on the main, they get water but it is sometimes once or twice for the week. And those who live in the lanes who are not connected to the pump have to come to the main, or go to other people houses who live on the main and have access, to get water,” she said, unable to hide her frustration.

Another resident from Back Pasture, Sharon Douglas, who lives in a different lane, said she spoke to a representative from the municipal corporation a few weeks ago to seek clarification on why some residents within the lane are connected to the water supply while others, including herself, are not.

“They told me at the parish council that the reason some residents got water before some is because they are doing the nearer ones — the ones on [the] road — first, and then people like myself who would branch off into the lane, because they had to run some very expensive lines to get people further in the lanes connected to the pump,” she said.

Despite her concerns and her “desperate” need for water Douglas said she is confident that the necessary connections will be made soon.

One resident from Cudjoe Hill who lives closer to the main road said he has had a slightly different experience. He explained that he has access to potable water but is not satisfied with the frequency of the supply.

“We get water a one day and a two day for the week, but it could be better. But for some people, the water is not enough because for people that don’t have any storage tank, it’s a problem because they depend on the water — and they have nothing to store them in,” he said.

He raised concerns about the fairness of water distribution across the district, saying that some residents in the Watermount community, who reside closer to the pump, receive the supply daily.

“We pay water bill and they pay water bill, so if you going to give some for the whole week then you have to give everyone water for the whole week,” he argued.

In the Watermount and Perdo communities, residents shared that many people in the lanes do not have access to water because pipes have not been connected in some areas, and the ones who do have access only receive water two or three days for the week.

In Mendez community, residents shared a very different experience. Shopkeeper Mark Facey said they have not had water for years, and they feel neglected. Additionally, he was not aware of any plans for the residents of Mendez, despite being listed as recipients, to receive water from Rural Water Supply Limited, the State-owned engineering company that is primarily involved in the design, planning and implementation of potable water infrastructure.

“To get water, we have to build tanks and buy water. There are people in the area who have trucks who we pay to get water to full our tanks, and they go as far as Green Acres to get the water we pay for,” Facey stressed.

A passing resident who overheard the interview shouted that he has been living in Mendez for more than 70 years and he has never seen running water in the community.

“Water come in like gold to people in these areas!” he shouted before leaving the scene.

Another resident in Mendez explained that they do not believe the pump on the system is strong enough for them to get water from that source, even as she said they would love to have water in the community.

When we contacted Spanish Town Mayor Norman Scott for clarification on the issue of water provision in Mendez he said the system was built to accommodate only 2,900 residents.

“I am the one who initiated, started, rebuilt the William Gully Dam — which is the source of that water — and when we recognised that the distributing system was not doing enough, I sought and got approval to upgrade the system. So, some of the areas that are being spoken about to receive supplies are not true,” he said.

“Everybody want water but can the source provide? Because this is a perennial system where at times it will get very low, but I am not the expert on that,” Scott said.

He directed the Sunday Observer to speak with Rural Water Supply Limited to find out the specific areas that are supposed to receive water, but when the newspaper spoke to the company’s Managing Director Audley Thompson he said he could not comment on the specifics.

“We did the designs, we supervised and managed the construction, and we put in some amount of distribution on some of the main aspects of the system. We then handed it over to the municipal corporation with the intention that they would do the minor extensions… they are the ones who are managing the system so you would have to talk to the CEO there,” Thompson said.

However, when the
Sunday Observer attempted to speak to the acting chief executive officer at St Catherine Municipal Corporation, the secretary directed us to speak with the mayor regarding the residents’ issues.

The plight of the residents came to public attention last month when St Catherine West Central Member of Parliament Dr Christopher Tufton accused the St Catherine Municipal Corporation of failing to meet its mandate to water to the communities.

Tufton, in a February 2024 letter to Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie, appealed for his intervention in the matter, stating that “for months citizens have paid their monies to get connected and nothing has happened”.

“There seems to be no urgency on the part of the parish council while citizens wait in frustration,” Tufton stated.

However, Mayor Scott dismissed the claim and suggested that Tufton was out of touch with developments in his constituency.

“I am told there were some individuals who paid and have still not been connected because no transmission lines were done in some of the lanes; those persons who are on the main [road] have all been connected to the system. Some of those in the lanes, they did make their payments so the municipality has embarked on an additional expansion of the distributing line, which is being undertaken now,” he said.