NWC Making Progress under JWSIP

KINGSTON — The National Water Commission (NWC) is making significant progress under its multi-million Jamaica Water Supply Improvement Project (JWSIP), with a number of achievements on the Stony Hill distribution segment of the project.

Addressing a community meeting at the St. Jude’s Anglican Church in the community on Wednesday (October 26), Minister of Housing, Environment, Water and Local Government, Dr. Horace Chang, informed that work is almost complete on the Constant Spring water treatment plant.

“That plant is the largest in Jamaica at this point. Its capacity was designed to do 18 million gallons a day. Over the years, it has been reduced to about 12 million gallons a day. We are now up to 20 million a day from that plant,” he said.

He also informed that the Seaview treatment plant, which produces two million gallons of water per day, has been totally rehabilitated and can now be operated 24 hours a day to serve the areas immediately around Stony Hill.

These are: Halls Green, Temple Hall, Golden Spring, Lawrence Tavern, Sherbourne Heights and Kingswood to the West, Stillwell Road, Long Lane, Old Stony Hill Road to the south, Stony Hill proper and Jacks Hill to the east.

Dr. Chang said that major work still needs to be done on the intake and the distribution systems of the two plants. “Intake work has been done on the Constant Spring plant and it continues. There is some problem on the intake into Seaview, which is what affected a large section of Stony Hill last week,” he stated.

He informed that the proposed wells at Halls Green have not proven to provide an efficient and reliable yield of water, and so that project is being “re-scoped” to provide the Golden Spring and Temple Hall areas with improved supply from the Seaview plant.

The NWC also intends to complete the installation of water mains within the Stony Hill region at a cost of $260 million within the next 20 months.

The JWSIP, which is divided into segments A and B, is the single largest project ever undertaken by the NWC.

It has a total cost of $17 billion (US$211 million) and, on completion, will bring an additional 20 million gallons of water to residents in Kingston and St. Andrew,

St. Catherine and other areas of Jamaica.

The Stony Hill distribution works are being undertaken under segment A at a cost of some $500 million, and also includes detection and repair of 300 leaks to maximise water availability and improve efficiently and reduce loss.

The Stony Hill segment of JWSIP is expected to be completed by March 2012.

“At that time you should have the supply of water that we had committed to providing you in this region,” Dr. Chang said.

By Latonya Linton, JIS Reporter