BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE Water Department, with assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and OECS, this morning (May 8) re-launched the ‘Conscious Water Wise Public Awareness Campaign’ to reduce water wastage and bring awareness of Climate Change in St. Kitts.
The one-day Water Department-organised Exhibition held at the Independence Square, sought to reinforce the need to conserve on water and better manage the environment.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister with responsibility for Public Utilities, Hon. Dr. Earl Asim Martin, who delivered the keynote speech, explained that locals need to conserve more on the water which comes through the system.
“We can do many things to help conserve on water. This is a collaborative effort between the Water Services Department and the Department of Physical Planning and Environment, OECS and all stakeholders,” he said.
Dr. Martin stressed that currently residents of St. Kitts have an inexpensive water supply coming through their taps on a regular basis, but it might not last forever.
“In order to prepare and adapt to climate change, the reality is all these events will have to change in some form or fashion to change your current water usage practices to help conserve water resources to the benefits off all us. In St. Kitts and Nevis the ultimate source water is from rain.”
He noted that investments must be made to have water systems upgraded to alleviate the threats of climate change on water systems with changes in the weather.
“The growing threat of climate change means that rainfall patterns are changing and sea levels are rising. This is a serious threat! We must invest in adaption to ensure that our water system is resilient enough to withstand these threats,” the Minister stressed.
He challenged residents to care for the “precious resource” for a sustainable future.
Another speaker at the Exhibition, June Hughes, Senior Environmental Officer at the Department of Physical Planning and the Environment, stated that the relaunch is a part of a broader scope of climate change that the OECS is pushing.
She stated that St. Kitts has chosen to focus its attention on the water sector, which is a critical part of the country’s development, while adding that Phase One of the Rallying the Region to Action on Climate Change Project “addressed water conservation and water auditing”.
“We successfully completed it last year and we would soon embark on the Second Phase this year. In Phase One we completed a water conservation plan, trained a number of persons in water auditing and audited a number of public and private institutions as well as some households.”
She stressed that Climate Change has been hailed as the most life-altering human induced activity of the modern era to which St. Kitts needs to pay more attention.
“Climate Change will touch and is touching every aspect of human existence. The recently released Fifth Assessment Report of the inter-governmental panel on Climate Change at the IPCC has a 95 certainty of this contemporary dilemma. This problem can no longer be trumped up to the fanciful imagination of bored environmentalist.”
Speaking on the wastage of water in St. Kitts, Assistant Water Engineer Denison Paul lamented that when compared with other islands, the Federation is wasting a lot of water in its daily activities.
He declared that when compared with Antigua, which has a larger population, statistics shows that both islands are consuming the same quantity of water. This is in excess of five million gallons of water on a daily basis.
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