AS Jamaicans confront the recurrent threat of drought, worsened by the El Niño weather phenomenon, a renewed proposal to convert seawater into potable supplies has received mixed reactions from specialists who see potential in desalination but question whether it is a practical solution at scale, given its operating cost and heavy reliance on energy.

The issue was raised during a webinar hosted by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) last Wednesday. Duane Rowe, the OUR’s director of regulation, policy, monitoring and enforcement, argued that desalination could be an option to settle some of the island’s water challenges.

Rowe noted that, having lived and worked in the Middle East for 15 years, he saw how that region — which lacks significant ground and surface water reserves — depends on desalination for much of its domestic and industrial water usage.

However, he reasoned that due to the energy-intensive nature of the process, Jamaica must first lower its electricity costs to make it a viable and economically sound option. “You need a lot of energy to extract the salt from the seawater. And, of course, the Middle Eastern countries, they have a lot of energy, so it only makes sense. For Jamaica, we would need to significantly reduce the cost of energy going forward, and maybe at that point we’ll be able to access that technology,” Rowe said.

Calling for umbrella legislation to facilitate better coordination among water sector agencies, Rowe argued that it could address gaps in the current framework that require coordination, including information sharing and joint planning. In that case, he pointed out that greater collaboration between energy and finance stakeholders could bring the country closer to finding a path towards desalination.

THOMPSON…whatever we need to do, we need to do that now

“[A country’s] energy costs and environmental impacts must be tested against alternatives, including loss reduction and improved existing supplies… Regulations should seek the least-cost path to dependable water and evidence that proves spending benefits consumers. Stakeholders can help shape these decisions,” said Rowe.

For her part, National Water Commission (NWC) Acting Vice-President of Operations Dr Phillipa Campbell-Francis said that desalination is not currently an economically sound solution. She explained that the NWC’s primary concern revolves around economic, financial, and environmental barriers. “It would be extremely expensive because of how energy-intensive it is. In addition to that, there is also a concern as it relates to brine.

The brine that is produced usually goes back to the sea. When it goes back to the sea it doesn’t mix with the regular seawater, it goes to the bottom, and then you have issues with oxygen availability and so on,” Campbell-Francis said, adding that the deoxygenation issue could be remedied, but would also be costly. She posited that a more practical way to strengthen the island’s water resilience is to lessen the NWC’s consistently high non-revenue water (NRW) levels.

Campbell-Francis noted that NRW — treated water that is produced and pumped but lost to leaks or theft before reaching billed customers — accounts for roughly 70 per cent of the utility’s water supply. “If we are able to manage NRW with the loss rate that we have, we do not even have to go too far into looking at desalination if it is that we can stem the losses and make more water available to our customers,” she argued. Despite this, Campbell-Francis said the possibility of desalination in Jamaica is not completely off the table.

In this Jamaica Observer file photo, Chief Petty Officer Shavargo Green of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force operates the reverse osmosis plant at the Falmouth Pier in December 2025, set up after Hurricane Melissa.

“We have not thrown it through the window, because ministers have started some discussions around that, like [for] some areas in St Thomas and so on. There are studies going on to look at the possibility for those areas, but it would be small, separated facilities as opposed to an islandwide plan,” she explained. In August, Water, Environment, and Climate Change Minister Matthew Samuda announced that feasibility studies are underway in St Thomas and Clarendon to assess the viability of potential desalination projects.

Speaking during a ministerial interview with Jamaica Information Service’s (JIS) Chief Executive Officer Giovanni Dennis, Samuda said the studies relate to a proposed integrated, pumped, hydro storage system that would use solar-powered infrastructure to extract seawater and pump it into a reservoir for storage and later use. “We would generate energy by releasing water from that reservoir to a lower reservoir and, in that process, you would extract the salt from the water… [the process is] called reverse osmosis.

The energy generated would allow us to afford the extraction,” the minister explained. However, Samuda said desalination is not being considered nationwide because high operating costs and potential environmental harm are major deterrents. “Desalination, if it were done at a national level, would significantly change the average tariff that you pay at the household and commercial level for water,” he reasoned.

While Samuda did not elaborate on the price, industry information is that a desalination system can cost up to $10.49 million annually, depending on the size, energy source and local conditions. Still, the water minister shared that feasibility testing will continue in named water-stressed areas, followed by an engineering phase expected to commence by 2027, with a proposed procurement aspect in 2028.

SAMUDA…desalination, if it were done at a national level, would significantly change the average tariff that you pay at the household and commercial levels for water

Last Tuesday, principal director of the Meteorological Service, Evan Thompson offered his thoughts on the issue, saying that desalination must be among water resilience options considered by the Government as the country continues to experience recurrent water shortages. Speaking on Nationwide News Network’s OPM on Air during Cliff Hughes Online, Thompson urged the Government to give the extraction process earnest thought. “It’s time for serious consideration of it.

I know that the minister has already started to look at that, and has been looking at it for a long time, because we have had some talks about that… and, of course, we have to weigh the costs versus benefits of all these things that we are looking at… Whatever we need to do, we need to do that now,” Thompson said. Last December, Jamaicans in Falmouth, Trelawny, benefited from a desalination project courtesy of the Bahamian Government which responded to the need for potable water in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa’s rampage across the island’s south- and north-western ends.

The project, set up at the Falmouth pier, was connected to 10 standpipes on the grounds of the nearby Church of the Assemblies of God. At the time, Alveta Knight, The Bahamas’ consul general to Jamaica, explained that the seawater, accessed through pipes planted in the sea, was pushed through a reverse osmosis plant and distributed to 10 spigots in the church parking lot. “So people can come at their leisure throughout the day and collect potable water,” Knight told the Jamaica Observer.

“We are churning out 1,000 gallons an hour, so we are inviting everybody. If you have a truck we can actually connect the truck directly to our system.” In 2024 the JIS reported that the island received a $61-million technical assistance grant from the United States Trade and Development Agency to undertake a study on the impact of reverse osmosis technology on the environment.

The study, JIS said, was to be undertaken at 13 National Environment and Planning Agency-approved reverse osmosis sites across the island. It would also examine reverse osmosis systems being utilised in at least four international jurisdictions to determine whether best practices in those territories can be adopted in Jamaica at the industrial or municipal scale and inform the permit process.

Standpipes at the Church of the Assemblies of God leading from the reverse osmosis plant at the Falmouth Pier in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa.