Caribbean looks to avoid fresh water scarcity

A waterfall in Dominica

Two years after a severe drought wreaked havoc with a number of Caribbean countries, some, including Dominica and Antigua & Barbuda, are now adopting new strategies in a bid to prevent a repeat of a situation where countries were rationing water and imposing strict restrictions on residents.

“We have embarked on a programme geared towards management of the catchment areas, which includes preventing deforestation, agricultural activities and use of chemicals in protected areas and overall limiting human activities in protected areas,” said Bernard Ettinoffe, general manager of the Dominica Water and Sewage Company (Dowasco).

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL STORY

Copyright 2012 Dominica News Online, DURAVISION INC. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed.

Disclaimer: The comments posted do not necessarily reflect the views of DominicaNewsOnline.com and its parent company or any individual staff member. All comments are posted subject to approval by DominicaNewsOnline.com. We never censor based on political or ideological points of view, but we do try to maintain a sensible balance between free speech and responsible moderating.

We will delete comments that:

  • contain any material which violates or infringes the rights of any person, are defamatory or harassing or are purely ad hominem attacks
  • a reasonable person would consider abusive or profane
  • contain material which violates or encourages others to violate any applicable law
  • promote prejudice or prejudicial hatred of any kind
  • refer to people arrested or charged with a crime as though they had been found guilty
  • contain links to "chain letters", pornographic or obscene movies or graphic images
  • are off-topic and/or excessively long

See our full comment/user policy/agreement.

10 Comments

  1. tiny
    March 14, 2012

    @ forreal sorry dno…first post was a mistake

    wow which comments are you talking about….the ones stating that parents and teachers should not beat and abuse kids……or the ones asking parents to develop relationship with their kids instead of being authoritarians…..or the one asking the legal system to stop wasting time and resources imprisoning crack head and small time drug dealers… oookkkkkkkkkkkkkk

    I’ll continue to post my comments…I’ll give thumbs up to comments that i like…but i never give thumbs down to comment though….not even those who criticize me

  2. Igloo
    March 14, 2012

    Before you all start any kind of programme, Physical Planning and Lands and Surveys personnel should get onboard. And stop allowing those Haitians to make coals everywhere!

    • Concern Citizen
      March 15, 2012

      If you know of anyone making coals illegal you should report to the Forestry Division it would help. 1. If coal pit is on state land 2. The wood must also be from state property for any action…..

  3. Francisco Telemaque
    March 14, 2012

    “Two years after a severe drought wreaked havoc with a number of Caribbean countries, some, including Dominica and Antigua & Barbuda, are now adopting new strategies in a bid to prevent a repeat of a situation where countries”

    What strategies can Antigua and Dominica develop to deal with draught, except build larger water catchments to accommodate as much water when it rains!

    You know this boy Bernard Ettinoffe is at it again, always running off his mouth spewing nonsense, this time; this man is comparing Dominica to Antigua and the effects of draughts on both islands.

    One is left to wonder what is the purpose for such comparisons, except the man simply wants to be in something where he does not belong. Someone should informed Bernard, that Dominica to which he belongs, for centuries has a recorded amount of three hundred, and sixty-five flowing fresh water rivers into the sea around Dominica!

    One for every day of the year; Antigua glory is three hundred-sixty-five beaches on the island, one for each day of the year.

    And this does not include springs, and feeder rivers, and springs flowing into the primary rivers.

    Whereas the island of Antigua does not have a single river, or even a spring flowing from the ground!

    Digging wells on the island is even pointless, because of the depth one may have to drill for that water, which might be salt by the time it is discovered; reasons are Antigua is only 108 square miles surrounded by the sea, with absolutely no rain forest, and not a single artisan well!

    It is foolish to make such comparisons, when it rains in Dominica everyday, even in the summer months,( which we refer to as “karrem”), and that is due to our rain forest, which Antigua, and most of the Caribbean islands are not endowed with.

    Secondly, Dominica possess as many Artisan Wells, that if push come to shove, and all the rivers were to disappear, dry-up, unless God got rid of our underground water, we could drill wells, and survive. A drought will devastate Antigua if it does not rain at some point and time, since the population dependency for drinking water is on rain fall.

    The other alternative is to distilled sea water.

    So, there is no comparisons between Dominica, and Antigua period, except Antigua is a more developed place than Dominica, there is no question about that. and in the event Bernard does not know the meaning of ” artisan wells” perhaps he can engage the services of a geologists to explain what that is to him.

    Is seems to me he has made a recent visit to Antigua, got back home with nothing to talk about so he is coming this nonsense.

    Who cares!

    Boy, if Raymond Ettinoffe, is your father, that would mean John Francis (headwork) Pantro Ettinoffe is your grandfather, in the event of any connection, that shed the light as to why your head is so screwed up, if John is your grandfather or related to you when you read my book you will learn something about him you will not believe.

    In event, if your roots are from Wesley, which I know it is you will be amazed what you will read about that man, he was married to my grandmother.

    Francisco Etienne-Dods Telemaque

  4. BIG
    March 14, 2012

    Water is GOLD! 8)

  5. UDOHREADYET
    March 14, 2012

    Its about time! Water is our most precious resource.

  6. tiny
    March 14, 2012

    please stop the deforestation….stop selling land so close to the rivers….our rivers are no longer rivers they are streams….i am no way saying that there is not supposed to be a change in the environment…because there are more homes and businesses with running water…but there are certain steps that can be taken to decrease the disappearance of our rivers

    • tiny
      March 14, 2012

      i realize that many of these properties are already privately owned…maybe the government should start buying them back…

    • Homeboy
      March 14, 2012

      Most sensible comment I have ever heard from you.

    • forreal
      March 14, 2012

      well well tiny,i must say i am taken back by this comment,i had to look outside to see if the weather had changed,but it is all good,at one point i said no you are child that fell on her head as a baby,because some of your comments had me like jesus christ why she dont just shut up,but you have pulled through,good comment,one love.

Post a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

:) :-D :wink: :( 8-O :lol: :-| :cry: 8) :-? :-P :-x :?: :oops: :twisted: :mrgreen: more »

 characters available