Saturday, March 20, 2010

What should we make of this crazy weather?

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good piece, Peter!

It is unlikely any progress will be made with water resources management in Saint Lucia and in other parts of the Caribbean until 2 things happen: (i) water is seen as having "an economic and social value in all its competing uses and as an economic good;" and (ii) water is priced in a way that encourages its judicious use and generates the money needed to maintain adequate water services."

These 2 points go to the heart of the issues in your probing piece.Ironically, they are just two 2 of the salient principles contained in the National Water Policy which was adopted by the last administration. Implementation of some parts of that policy began in earnest soon after its adoption. A Water Law was passed; a National Water and Sewerage Commission (NWSC) and a Water Resources Management Agency was established. Still, large parts of the policy remain untouched, especially those that aim at changing the values and attitudes of water users to make them realize that water is "neither limitless nor free". In this regard, the on-going drought has reinforced that message better than any public eduction campaign could have done.

But knowing our people as we do we know the lessons from the drought would be washed away when the rains come. Few will prepare for the next drought which will surely come; and fewer still will see the value of rendering to WASCo the thing that WASCo needs most: the revenue it needs to build and maintain water catchments and collection and distribution systems.

Those who opposed the the privatization of WASCo have yet to tell us how these critical investments will be financed; and now that Government appears to have abandonned the privatization idea, we wait to be told what its next move will be and more importantly: how the next dam will be financed? how the old lines that frequently rupture and waste 40% of the precious water WASCo produces, will be replaced? how WASCo will pay LUCELEC for the exorbitant cost of pumping water from various sources into our homes, hotel and businesses?

I pray that this drought ends soon. But I pray too that we will have gotten the message about what can happen when the rivers run dry. Now we could end up spending far more to survive the drought than we would have had to spend if we had treated water with the respect it deserves and given WASCo the means to do its work.

CSI

March 20, 2010 at 9:43 AM
Anonymous said...

talk, talk, talk and more talk.

March 21, 2010 at 8:22 PM

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