Residents set to benefit from enhanced water distribution system

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By Kisean Joseph

[email protected]

Residents in certain communities across Antigua are set to benefit from improved water service after the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) commissioned its new one-million-imperial-gallons-per-day facility at the Ffryes Reverse Osmosis Plant, operated by Seven Seas Water Group.

“In the long and short, what this means is more water for the people who have been crying out for lack of water,” said Jason Peters, APUA’s Acting Water Business Manager, during the plant’s soft opening on Friday.

“We have recognised that we have been faced with a challenge for years, and we have been making investments over and over to try to alleviate that problem throughout the nation,” Peters added.

The enhanced facility features a significant improvement in distribution of the resource, with two separate feed pipes installed on either side of the road — one directing water north towards St John’s and the other southwards toward the Crabbe Hill and Urlings areas. A new storage tank has also been incorporated into the system to improve supply management.

“The immediate impact will be felt more so south of here, in the Crabbe Hill, Johnsons Point … and getting to the whole road. They have been suffering quite recently, and we’ll be able to minimize their problem as a result of this new plant,” Peters said while cautioning that the system will need some fine-tuning.

“As of [Friday], it will not be smooth sailing, because this is just the opening operation. We expect to iron out whatever kinks that may exist within a week’s time,” he said.

APUA Communications Officer Annazette Reynolds further detailed the benefits, particularly for the southern communities.

“Those communities that are from Big Creek, all the way heading south to Old Road, they will certainly notice a benefit in their water supply – longer servicing period, higher water pressure to meet the elevated areas,” Reynolds said.

The improvements extend beyond the southern region, with plans to enhance water delivery to the western parts of the island.

“The additional water from the Ffryes plant can also aid the Gray’s Hill reservoir that services those communities in the St John’s area, the western corridor, all the way to Five Islands, Lower Ottos, Michael’s Village,” Reynolds added.

Meanwhile, Melford Nicholas, the minister responsible for APUA, said that these improvements are part of a broader, long-term strategy to revolutionize the island’s water management system.

“We are not going to relent within APUA until we have a sustainable production, distribution, and management system for water,” the minister said, acknowledging that many of the challenges being addressed are “decades-old, sometimes more than 35 years old”.

Minister Nicholas highlighted the importance of a key feature of the upgraded system, stating: “We have to build the resilience in our production system, such that if ever another drought condition presents itself, we’re in a position to ride it out.”

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