Dry and hot conditions have forced the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) to increase rationing hours of water.
According to officials from the CWSA, the water levels at four of the country’s main water systems were listed as critical.
Namely, the Dalaway, Majorca, Montreal and Mamoon water systems all have critical water levels.
According to Joan Ryan, CWSA’s Public Relations and Marketing Manager rationing began back on April 2 for communities being supplied by the Montreal water system with customers having their water supply disrupted between the hours 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
But Ryan speaking at a press briefing on May 14 said that rationing hours had expanded to twice daily with the disruptions added between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
“We have been doing a lot of manoeuvring and even before April, even before the disruptions began, we have been doing a lot of manoeuvring using other systems which support others,” Marco Audain, Engineer explained.
The Jennings system which he said feeds the Southeastern section of the country has been doing a lot of work to assist the Montreal system Audain said.
“But it has come to a point now where most of our sources are critically low,” he told members of the press.
“The usual manoeuvres that we have in place to assist one another and try to keep a 24/7 water supply to customers, it is a bit too severe right now,” Audain added.
Quite a few communities were now being affected, the CWSA engineer said, but according to him, the technical staff was doing all they could to use all the resources available to them.
“Unfortunately, we are in this position where it is very difficult, and we have to be disrupting the water supply to customers.”
Meanwhile, Winsbert Quow, General Manager of the CWSA said that the dry spell currently affecting St Vincent and the Grenadines was nothing unique to the country and that other neighbouring countries within the Eastern Caribbean were also experiencing similar conditions and have had to implement strategies geared towards water conservation.
“So, this is what is happening in the region, of course what’s driving this is climate change in particular global warming,” he said.
There have been significant increases in surface temperatures, and according to Quow, data collected from the Dalaway system which feeds about 40 percent of CWSA’s customer base has been affected by low rainfall.
He said that based on the data during the months February and April 2024, there has been a significant reduction in rainfall compared to the previous five years.
In February, there was 74.26 percent less rainfall compared to the previous five years; in March there was a 49 percent decrease and in April, a 55 percent decrease.
“So, we have a reduction in rainfall, but we also have seen an increase in temperatures,” the GM said.
Again, according to the data, Quow said that for the month of March 2024, the average temperature was about 2 degrees higher than the average for that month.
“So, you are seeing the compounding effects of reduced rainfall and increased temperature. And that is what driving the low water availability,” he said.
The dry and hot conditions were also blamed for the low stream flows.
According to Quow, there was a lot of rain in January, however beginning February the rain and the stream flow has been decreasing.
He said that the technicians were doing the best to ration to have water available for some time during the day for each community.
“It is a 24-hour operation in particular one of our systems, they have to be switching every half hour for the entire day, so there is someone manning the system.”
“So, it’s 24 hours and they have been doing a good job just trying to get water available to our customers,” he said.