MONTEGO BAY, St James — The governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has plans to introduce a massive hydro storage project to serve sections of Clarendon and the southern section of Manchester utilising cutting-edge technology if it is given the nod by voters in the September 3 General Election.

The announcement was made by JLP Leader Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness as he addressed a mass rally and the launch of the party’s election manifesto in Sam Sharpe Square, St James Sunday night.

While not announcing the cost of the project, Holness told thousands of JLP supporters who descended on Sam Sharp Square — for what was expected to be the party’s final mass meeting in St James before Jamaicans vote — that work has already started on it.

“We are going to take water from the sea. We’re going to use solar energy to pump the water up to the hills of Clarendon. We’re going to store it in a reservoir and then we are [going to] gravity [feed] it down and create electricity at the same time and that will provide water to the plains of Clarendon [and] to South Manchester,” said Holness.

He indicated that this project forms part of a wider effort to provide water to many communities across Jamaica where people are living with little or no supply.

According to Holness, since his Administration came into power in 2016, about 350,000 households that did not have water for years are now receiving the commodity.

He said in the next term of a JLP Government it will deliver water to 900,000 Jamaicans who either don’t have access, or are plagued by inconsistencies in supply and pointed to projects that have already been launched.

“Already underway is the Pedro Plains Project that will provide water in St Elizabeth and Manchester. And already underway is the Greater Mandeville Water Supply Project that is bringing water from St Elizabeth, taking it up the hills into Manchester through Spur Tree, providing the greater Mandeville with water,” he told the large crowd.

Holness also pointed to the Northwestern Water Resilience Project which was launched last month and is expected to harness water from Martha Brae River in Trelawny and Great River on the border of St James and Hanover. That project also involves the replacement of old pipelines which will improve supply from Trelawny into Negril.

He pointed to an ongoing project that will harvest 15 million gallons of water from the Rio Cobre to supply parts of St Catherine and Kingston and St Andrew to end the water lock offs during times of drought.

“That is not a promise, that is already work in progress,” added Holness.