Why water woes dog Corporate Area

WITH REGARD to a letter to the editor published on Friday, May 4, 2018, regarding water-supply disruptions by a resident of Roehampton Drive in St Andrew, it is never our intention to needlessly disrupt service to any legitimate customer and, therefore, the National Water Commission (NWC) apologises for any disruption in the supply of water to any and all of its legitimate, paying customers.

However, it should be publicly well-known by now that the NWC is now in the middle of the implementation of a transformative five-year Kingston and St Andrew (KSA) Non-Revenue Water (NRW) Reduction Programme.

Under this US$42.5 million programme between the NWC and its international water-efficiency partner, Miya, the aim includes cutting by half the level of NRW, improving water service and reliability, improving resilience of the water supply network, and reducing the cost of delivering excellent water service in KSA.

Much has already been done, but a lot still needs to be done to complete this major upgrading effort. For example, 2,500 kilometres of pipelines has been checked, mapped, and rechecked as part of an active leak-detection programme to identify leaks that are not visible; more than 5,000 leaks repaired and road cuts reinstated; and more than 750 new valves and control devices have been installed of a total of 2,100 that are needed to operate the 122 new pressure zones being created in KSA.

Over the next five to eight months, there will be an increase in activities relating to leak repairs, pipeline replacements, trial excavations, valve installations/ replacement, pressure-reducing valve chamber installation, and pressure zones and district metered areas establishment, as well as targeted activities to regularise illegal usage and other issues in socially challenged areas.

FUTURE DISRUPTIONS

Regrettably, many NWC customers will experience an increase in both planned and unplanned interruptions in their service as the project reaches a critical implementation stage. These disruptions may be due to the programme works as well as other issues such as emergency breaks to pipelines, urgent responses to issues on the network, localised problems or the impact of various road-improvement activities across KSA.

As in the particular case of Roehampton Drive, some customers there experience an abnormally long period of no water. Those specific issues have been investigated and corrected. (However, the general issues relating to the negative short-term impacts of the NRW programme will still be experienced.) CHARLES BUCHANAN Corporate Public Relations Manager

National Water Commission