The Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) has expressed concern as it pertains to the significant change in weather patterns here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the impact it has on the nation’s water supply.
Head of Water Resources at the CWSA, Danroy Ballantyne said that the wet season of 2023 had some of the lowest recorded rainfall in recent history. Mr. Ballantyne said there was a %50 reduction in rainfall last year during November, which is normally one of the wettest months of the year.
“In 2023, the wet season, that wet season was actually, for a ten-year average, one of the lowest. November—October, November are actually some of the wettest months of the year and we saw something like %50 reduction in rainfall in November last year. Our dry seasons are more frequent, we had dry seasons in 2010, 2014, 2015, the early part of that year was actually dry and then we had 2019 dry season from 2019 to 2023 we had reduction in rainfall,” he said.
Mr. Ballantyne, during his appearance on VC3’s Roundtable Talk program, noted that according to the CWSA’s stream flow data, there had been a %32 reduction at the Dalloway intake during November 2023.
“Our stream flow data indicated that at Dalloway, which is actually the Buccament river, that’s a big stream, a big river, we saw last year in the wet season, a reduction of about %32 in flow. In addition to that we have seen extremities in terms of rainfall; we had the flood in Georgetown, we had the December flood, we had flood in Sandy Bay in 2016/2017, thereabout. In December last year we had significant amount of rain that caused a massive landslide in the upper watershed of Georgetown which is presently affecting one of our intakes, the perseverance intake, and so, at any given time, once it’s raining, we have to shut down the system because of, again, high turbidity or brown water levels,” Ballantyne said.
Mr. Ballantyne emphasized the reality of climate change and its effects on things such as a nation’s water supply, noting that there should be some level of concern about its impacts.