Nature for water – an NWC perspective
THE NATIONAL Water Commission (NWC) wholeheartedly supports the commemoration of World Water Day, which is about focusing attention on the importance and value of water.
Usually, the ‘silent service’ of water supply hardly gets noticed unless it is to complain about its absence. The public often trustingly expects that safe drinking water will simply come out of their taps every day when they need it, with hardly a thought to issues of infrastructure condition, topography, weather conditions, and cost. We do not usually take the time to try to understand the systems that enable us to get this service and the many issues faced by water utilities i n delivering safe water to communities.
Most Jamaicans take watersupply service for granted, but water is essential to life and deserves more than a passing thought. The NWC, Jamaica’s premier – but not only – water service provider, spends millions of dollars every day to provide clean water and wastewater services every day. Yet, the average Jamaican household is charged less than three per cent of its i ncome for t he provision of this essential and cheapest utility service.
This year ’s theme for the commemoration of World Water Day (‘Nature for Water – exploring nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century’) is particularly relevant to Jamaica and coincides with many of the issues of concern and major priorities of the NWC.
Water is a product of nature. Therefore, if the natural environment is damaged and the natural water cycle disturbed – as with climate change – waterrelated crises are an inevitable result. The water crises we see around the world with frequent, dangerous hurricanes, droughts, and water pollution are all related to how we interact with nature.
The NWC, like water utilities everywhere else, gets its water from rivers, springs, and underground aquifers. Even those utilities that do
desalination have to collect the water from the sea, a part of the natural environment. It goes without saying that if we neglect or abuse our natural habitats or ecosystems, we make it harder to provide everyone with the water we all need in order to survive and thrive.
The NWC recognises that while not being a panacea, nature-based solutions often provide very practical and less costly solutions for many water challenges. NWC joins in the call for more ‘green’ infrastructure to be harmonised with existing ‘grey’ infrastructure to both preserve our environment and advance our development. The science is very clear that simple things like planting trees to restore our forests; maintaining green spaces to reduce run-off, soil erosion and landslides; and restoring wetlands are not only good for nature, but also great for water supply systems, human health, and providing sustainable livelihoods. We therefore fully support the various reafforestation and watershed protection efforts such as those in the Hope River and Yallahs River watersheds.
The NWC is also now aggressively pursuing projects that will reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our costs, and improve our efficiencies while being protective of the environment. We are seeking to increase our use of renewable energy and are also re-using the discharge from our Bogue Wastewater Treatment Plant – which has a capacity of 10 million gallons per day – in the operation of JPSCo Power Plant in Montego Bay.
We recognise that damaged ecosystems affect the quantity and quality of water available for human consumption and therefore recently spent more than $1 billion to construct an artificial groundwater recharge system in Innswood, St Catherine, that sees us pumping excess surface water into sinkholes and wells to sustain the water levels and quality of the Rio Cobre aquifer.
Similarly, our single largest project now being implemented, the US$42.5M Kingston and St Andrew Non-Revenue Water Reduction Co-Management Programme, seeks to reduce the waste of precious treated water from our network and improve the efficiency of our operations. Our waste-water improvement programmes also speak to our commitment to the practical implementation of programmes to protect our water resources and enhance water availability.
The NWC knows that access to safe water by Jamaicans requires protecting the natural environment, reducing pollution, and ensuring a sustainable use of our natural water resources, hence our full support for World Water Day 2018. Join us in whatever way you can in exploring nature-based solutions to the many water challenges we face today.