A local environment official is urging Dominica to “buck up” and pay greater attention to its water resources.
Authorities have been urging Dominicans to conserve water as drought-like conditions continue to affect the island, but Lloyd Pascal, Director of the Environmental Coordinating Unit, says there must be greater efforts to have more water storage facilities here.
“The time has come for us to approach donors, and tell them that we have a resource that is of very big scarcity in the world. Fresh water is not available in the quantities that the world needs, and we have in Dominica in super abundance, that we don’t know what to do with it. Now, the time has come for us to decide that we need to do something with it and we need to store it somewhere,” he said.
Pascal has described as shameful, the number of water storage facilities on Dominica, an island that boasts of having 365 rivers.
“You have only one major water storage facility … There is some shame in that kind of thing that we need to buck up because there is no need to be boasting about all those rivers when the rivers actually don’t belong to us; we just watch them and watch the water pass by,” Pascal emphasized.
I am in full agreement with the need for water storage facilities. We have an abundance of water now, but you never know when they table might turn. Rather than looking towards selling water we should look first towards storage.
This should be done in the form of dams if necessary, and every major village should have the facility to store water.
Perhaps DOWASCO needs competition, someone willing to undertake storage as its major goal.!!
Lloyd has Dominica at heart and Humanitary service and looking for the best interest of the people is being shown by his recommendation . Lloys is a well rounded and educated man. He is very much under utilized in the day to day runnings of the commonwealth.
Imagine ECU official agree that Dominica need an oil refinery. The ECU up to now has not educated the Dominican public re. the ill effects of setting up an oil refinery in the Nature Isle. Imagine what would have happened to our water and water resources. Hundreds of pollutants affecting our water system. Dominicans must be consistent with regards to protecting our fragile environment
isnt there supposed to be a project for that same purpose? The Morne Bruce project for the Roseau catchment area.
wasnt he a minister of govenment once? wso why now alone he coming out? i dunno just asking cuz all our leaders have a vision for the country only they themselves know about… and when a situation arises its only then we know what should’ve done.
MAC-arthur dont be stupid. by right water is free but it doesnt just show up at your door steps. and thats the service dowasco provides to u.
every country u go too operates the same way. u bring your connection to there and then u receive service. they are not responsible for bringing the water directly to your house but up to a point
yes we do need water storage facilities and we need to be more conservatives.
its like Dominicans are so out of touch with the world and so ignorant, they have no way of comprehending whats going on in the world. there is a shortage of water people and soon its going to affect us and stop saying 365 rivers because compare to the rest of the world they are just streams and from what i saw when i recently went home they are all drying up
When you construct your own home you have to buy water pipe and lay it to bring water to your home. You pay a connection charge and there is no cost to DOWASCO.
The weather brings rain and it fills the rivers, this is at no cost to DOWASCO.
People pay their water bills every month, so what are DOWASCO doing with the money? Drinking it? Is the work force too big, inefficient and over paid?
There are a lot of one off costs involved in water management; Water purification equipment, storage tanks, pipe…etceteras, but I would like to hear from DOWASCO as to the reason for their and what I mean is our, low number of quality large water storage facilities around Dominica.
Maybe if the storage and supply of water was looked at by constituency, DOWASCO could charge according to the cost of supply and maintenance. When constituencies are connected together, this cost could be averaged out and hopefully become lower.
How long have DOWASCO been managing the water in Dominica? What are their goals for each constituency? Why are the parliamentarians not publicly pressing DOWASCO for plans and time tables for each area?