Action Taken to Reduce Non-Revenue Water

Prime Minister, the Most Hon. Andrew Holness, says advances are being made on the Kingston and St. Andrew Non-Revenue Water (NRW) Co-Management Project.

“This project is supposed to last for five years. We’re making steady progress in mapping meters and finding leaks, so we will be able to reduce non-revenue water,” he said.

The Prime Minister was speaking at his quarterly press briefing held at his Devon Road offices in Kingston on September 21.

NRW refers to water that has been produced and is lost before it reaches the customer. Losses can happen as a result of leaks, theft or metering inaccuracies.

The project is intended to improve water supply to residents and save the National Water Commission (NWC) billions of dollars in lost revenue.

President of the NWC, Mark Barnett, in a JIS News interview said the project is almost at the end of its second year, and improvements have been made in non-revenue water.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister noted that in May this year, a Regional Water Financing Conference, hosted by the NWC in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), was successful in assisting regional water and sewerage utilities in the formulation and financing of action plans.

These plans will result in consumers having greater access to reliable water and sewerage services at the least possible cost, taking into consideration prevailing local conditions.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister noted that rainwater harvesting systems have been installed in 10 schools, and “we’re moving towards the sustainable provision of water in areas where we cannot supply water using the conventional piped system”.

“These will become good test cases to see how we can expand water by using water catchment areas and solar pumping as alternative solutions,” he said.

Other water projects in the pipeline to be implemented by the NWC involve a partnership with the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) to install floating solar panels on the Mona Reservoir, and the completion of certain existing projects in Hanover, Westmoreland and Clarendon.

Cabinet has also approved the NWC going to market to procure 150,000 electronic meters to be installed across the island, which is expected to begin later this year.

Further usage of technology will be employed to read metres on properties.