BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – NOTWITHSTANDING that there has been a considerable increase in rainfall over the past weeks, Acting Manager of the Water Services Denison Paul has advised that the island is not yet out of the woods and every effort should be made at water conservation.
Because of the abnormally dry period that the Federation and other countries across the Caribbean experienced in the not too distant past, warnings were issued to consumers to seriously engage in water conservation activities as the water reserve levels were alarmingly low.
Wastage of water and lack of rain, according to the Water Department, were two of the major contributing factors to the water shortage/drought.
Recently, SKNVibes spoke with Paul who said the situation has improved slightly but noted that the Basseterre Valley Aquifer is still operating at a deficit.
“We have had some rain in the last couple of months. I got hold of the rainfall data for the year a couple of days ago and it shows that we are now at 20 inches of rain for the year up to the end of October. We should have had 40-45 inches of rain up to the end of October, so we are still about 50 percent in deficit. The rain we have received for the last couple of months has not been sufficient to take us to where we should be this time of year.
“What typically happens is that rain starts falling sometime in May and then significantly more amounts in July, August, September and October. And that water is stored in the acquirer underground or in the springs so that we can use the following year dry season in January, February, March and April. Rain falls in the wet season so that we can have it to use the following dry season. That is how it works. So we have had no rain this dry season. We have had a little bit of rain the wet season. So it means we don’t have any water stored for next year’s dry season.”
Paul explained that he heard the call for water rationing to end simply because rainfall has increased, but noted that because the rain that falls in the wet season for use the following year during the dry season, it would not be prudent to abandon the austerity measure at this stage.
“There is the shout now that now that rain is falling we should go back to normal. We cannot come back to normal, because if we do that now next dry season is supposed to be dryer than the last one and then we would be in grave difficulties. So we are now trying to save the water we have because our levels were critically low. They are building slowly, the levels are trending in the right direction, but we are nowhere near where we should be…
“Typically, this time of year we get more rain than we are getting now. I do not want people to become complacent and to be fooled into thinking that things are back to normal. Because, really they are not.
Paul advised this publication that, despite the innumerable calls for individuals to conserve water, it is still not being done.
“The only reason we are getting some relief is because we shut the system down at night from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. So that is where we are still making our savings. What we are doing in terms of the rationing is to improve our long-term chances for water going into next year. Every forecast has predicted that we are going to have a really, really bad dry season. El Nino is still in effect, and when it is in this part of the world conditions are not conducive to rainfall and that is what has been happening.”
