107 NWC Systems Impacted by Drought

The National Water Commission (NWC) is reporting that 107 of its systems are being impacted by the drought conditions, at varying stages.

This update was provided by Acting Vice President, Operations, NWC, Dr. Phillipa Campbell-Francis, during an Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) webinar on Jamaica’s Water Sector, held on Wednesday (September 30).

“We have some facilities that are at zero per cent and some at 40 per cent from this list of impacted systems. The primary concern though is in Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Thomas and in the northeast region where we are seeing most of our facilities or smaller facilities, and in the case of Kingston, our major facilities impacted by drought,” Dr. Campbell-Francis stated.

She informed that the Hermitage Dam is currently at 40.2 per cent and the Mona Dam at 33.7 per cent. She added that the Seaview Water Treatment plant as well as the Hope Treatment Plant are also severely impacted by the drought.

Dr. Campbell-Francis stressed that the most important thing for the NWC during this period is to ensure that service is delivered, and that every customer is served.

“Now there are times when we will have challenges serving some customers through the pipelines and then in those cases and in limited communities, we will have to do trucking in Kingston… though for our rural systems, it’s primarily by trucking,” she noted.

To ensure that customers are properly served, Dr. Campbell- Francis said the NWC has been recommissioning its resting wells, trucking water, as well as pumping in areas “where you would have been gravity feeding before.”

“We pay attention to managing… the pressures in the network. We have to focus on cleaning sources for small impoundments. We manage storage and we also ask through public awareness, that our customers manage their storage, ensure they have storage and manage the storage for the days or the hours that they may be out of service,” she noted.

The NWC produces approximately 190 million gallons of water per day and serves two million customers.