Dominica has considerable obstacles in its way delaying the export of bulk water, a government minister has said.
The island has been selling bottled water to overseas markets; but, it is said that all attempts to date to export the commodity in greater volumes have failed.
“I don’t think any government has succeeded in exporting bulk water”, Reginald Austrie, Minister for Water Resource Management said at a press conference on Wednesday.
He said the main problem is with the transfer of the water from Dominica to overseas territories not with the sourcing and packaging of the water here.
Caribbean countries including Grenada, St.Lucia and Trinidad who had requested water from Dominica following passage of hurricane Tomas last year never collected the water, Austrie revealed.
“The difficulty is, we have a challenge in finding the appropriate ship to transport the water but the receiving country also have a challenge in receiving the water. Say you find a boat, you go to St.Lucia, once you get to St. Lucia, where do you put that water?” he explained.
Austrie said the cost of shipping could also make it expensive for countries importing bulk water.
Meanwhile Sisserou Water Incorporated, that has been looking to export bulk water, said Thursday it is well on its way and could begin by 2012.
What about charity begins at home.I marvel at this bull when I know of so many people begging even after paying to get hooked up for running water to their homes, me included.
i don’t understand the minister’s explanation. why would we need to store the water in St Lucia. i thought once a product is exported it is distributed from the port of entry.
Soon my dear friends it will be heading for China….That is a cover up for now. Make us sot dominican feel like we have no hope for the water…
Off course it will fail it is the caribbean Island. Wait and see what happens, CHINA will come in with some deal and they will get sale for it. Trying to make us dominican feel that the little boat sunk so we had to look for a bigger one(market). It is coming. Wait and see.
All you to waste of time Austrie. You people are just sitting down in AC offices and not doing any work. Get off all you butts and go do some fair work for a fair day’s pay.
An who gets the money for the water???
…are we getting money now for the water that runs into the sea?
You never miss the water till the well runs dry. I know you will always have plenty water in Dominica more times too much. But the way people throw nasty garbage any and everywhere Ravins, roadsides, just in front of the shops. And pesticide run off Disgusting! the water is not as clean as you think in some places. It can change but people must make that change. Love my rivers too!
Oh, please, I just read Reginald Austrie’s words and they are a bunch of lame excuses. Tell the government to on the ball and make it work. Dominica has water that other islands are asking for and we are fooling around.
It is very simple. Our water is excellent but also expensive to bring to market. In fact, too expensive! A 1 1/2 litre bottle of Loubiere water retails at $3.50 and the same size imported from Trinidad for $2.69, in the same local store. If you go and check what bottled water retails for in U.S. or the U.K. supermarkets you arrive at even bigger price differences. No doubt there are those, who will say:”oh, but ours is better!” using the same argument as for our bananas, which are not selling either. Unless we can establish our products as “premium” brands and/or reduce our costs of production & transport we’ll just have to keep keep on dreaming. Meanwhile, despite everything I keep on drinking my Loubiere but painfully aware of its exorbitant price.
the water is superior to others and should be classified as a premium water like Fiji water. A small bottle frequently sells for $4.00. guarantee loubiere water is just as good if not better
Is that finally dawning on you. Try the Caribbean market first and use the ferries.
Those countries need to build storage tanks or the like. U all putting the cart before the horse.
Es pou Sisserou Water mem every year is next year.I hope those people with all the answers make that venture a success.
Next thing we’ll hear they bold enough to ask the Govt. to subsidize them!!
Yet again we have another date for the start of export of bulk water from Dominica. The man who knows it all. Who knows every detail of how a small island like Dominica ought to be developed. Two years after having obtained an exclusive license to undertake bulk water exports from Dominica, Athie Martin could only respond with yet another date when it is expected to begin bulk water exportation. He was so unsure of the schedule that he said something like that. Sometime next year by the first or second quarter they will begin exporting water from DOWASCO facilities on the West Coast, not the East coast as his license allows, since he and his partners have had to redo their strategy. He promise though that in time he will get the real project going. Boy Athie good with his mouth. He thinks that only he can think and speak intelligently
tHAT’S A LIE.. tHE WATER DELIVERED TO ST.LUCIA WAS DELIVERED.. FULL CONTAINERS OF BOTTLED WATER WAS DELIVERED AND USED!
The story is about shipping bulk water not bottled water.
The man said the water delivered to st.lucia during the devastation was not received.. the poster clearly stated that it was.. They shipped bottled water to them not bulk..
aye aye export my water!
The One and only thing i miss of D/ca when i’m abroad is the fresh pure water.
Imagine i sometime wish i could bring one of the many rivers with me.lol
All now so i looking for Loubiere spring water in all the supermarkets in St.Maarten,can’t find it.
D.A water,i miss you
Excuses ,excuses, excuses. We exported bulk water to St.Martin in the 80’s so what’s the problem now.
Please permit me through this medium to respectfully enlighten the Hon. Minister by informing that during the tenure of Mr Eric P. Munroe at the then Central Water Authority, Dominica did export at least one shipment of bulk water within the region.
I am sure that a little research will provide the date, quantity and receiving state.
If there was only one shipment of exported water from this Water Authority, does’nt this confirm it must be a very difficult task. If it was financially successful surely we would be exporting up to now. Perhaps Mr Martin is experiencing theses same difficulties. However, because of politics we are always reinventing the wheel and making the same mistakes as no one is prepared to come together and work together for the development of Dominica.
So, why they didn’t repeat the experiment?
on the subject of depleted oil reserves has there been concrete evidence to support that claim the middle oil giant have never allowed outsider to to do a quantity valuation and holding on to the water is no the way to go cause while you sleep at night the river flows to the sea do you or can you use that water which flows while you sleep the best way forward is to do a proper survey and impact assessment but all means make money form the abundance of water we have
I think The hurdles mentioned in this news item with regards to not being able to transport water are mere excuses. You guys need to try very hard with this because we import water when we should not as we are blessed with so much of it. I believe the bottled water coming here is as a result of us trying to please these other countries. There must be a way to get our water overs and collect revenue for the country’s development. I believe that anything the we have in our country to export should be handled with much more Testies than that.
Of course it will be a difficulty to export all this water!!
What we need to open a company here and then we can bottle the water here in all shapes and sizes and then export it (already packaged). That seems to be the more feasible path to me!!
um i think i read the minister said that packaging is not a problem but it deals more with the receiving countries… they may not have a place to put all that water
Good news, great news! Sorry it may seem as though I am greedy and selfish, but we as Dominicans are blessed to have what we do and other countries aren’t as forthcoming with their blessings. We should be glad that we are unable of shipping bulk water, I don’t want to have to resort to a cistern for all my water needs, surely this will be the end result of shipping out our water, we won’t have much left for ourselves. I know it would seem s though our water source is never ending, however when we consider how rich oil deposits were a few decades ago versus how depleted they have become in recent years, I find it hard to believe that this will not be the inevitable end of water in Dominica as we know it.
My 2 cents.
I respect your point. But you should know that oil and water is different in the sense that we do not have to commit to deforestation practices Hence our water supply can never depreciate even if we export to the entire Caribbean.
To add… do you know the damage being done beneath the sea to drill out all those fossil fuels? It is just as horrible as deforestation.
Point taken.
Hopefully with the advent of development, and how rapidly land gets sold and developed, the deforestation you spoke of doesn’t soon become a factor. The point I was trying to make was at first we started off using oil in moderation, using only what was needed, but once an economy depends on its consumption, simply because of the revenue it either has already generated or has the potential to generate, the domino effect will begin….all these forces combined, water and oil have far more similarities than differences.
What you think?
lol go back to school please and learn about the difference between renewable and non-renewable resources. Not trying to be offensive here but seriously? The reason we have good water source in dominica is because of our relatively clean environment compared to other countries, also our large percentage of vegetation cover and the shape and location of the island. We are one of the most mountainous islands in the caribbean and located in the middle of the caribbean tropical zone which means we have high levels of rainfall. As long as we maintain our environment we can ship out lots of water and it will always be replaced. Of course there is the case of droughts and weather changes but those are extreme cases.
tl;dr water is a renewable resource oil is not
Seems like the one who needs an education is yourself! Renewable resource huh? Cut the trees through development and we’ll see how renewable the resources truly are. Once the economy begins to benefit from the shipping of water we’ll see how important the water remains to us versus the amount of money it makes us to further develop our country thus compounding the problem, YOU SIR ARE A FOOL!