Many households in Linden will continue to experience inadequate supply or no potable water for an indefinite period; this is because the much hyped US$13.2 million Linden water treatment project has failed to meet expectations.
The project, which boasts a modern water treatment facility and a 3,200 cubic metre reservoir at Wisroc and a 2,800 cubic metre reservoir and a 200 foot well at Amelia’s Ward, was expected to be commissioned before the May 11 general election, but the idea was shelved after it was realized that the two facilities could not produce enough water to meet the expected demand. This information was kept secret until it was unearthed by Chairman of the Linden IMC Orrin Gordon during a fact finding tour of the facilities on Tuesday 22 August.
GWI’s Divisional Manager Rawle Friday and project engineer David Merrel conducted the tour in which town councillor Charles Sampson and two workers from the environmental health department of the Linden Town Council – Crystal Drakes and Terone Lowenfield – participated, accompanied by reporters from Stabroek News and the Guyana Chronicle.
During the tour, Gordon said he has been bombarded by residents from both sides of the river with complaints that they have not been receiving adequate supplies of potable water. He said even residents close to the reservoir in Amelia’s Ward, complain that they have resorted to using black tanks to trap rain water.
The IMC Chairman outlined that the municipality as representatives on behalf of the people, took the lead role in facilitating meetings and consultations between the project planners and stake holders and as the project unfolded followed the progress of construction. Noting that the project “had some slippages in terms of completion time,” Gordon said, “we understand construction design and some other issues that were there. But we decided around November last year to take a walk around the project. However, the walk around did not materialize.”
He said the general information given was that Dakoura Creek from which the Wisroc Water Treat-ment Plant was pulling water could supply the whole of Linden with potable water. He stressed that the new facilities were expected to replace two older water treatment plants in Linden – one located at Mackenzie in the vicinity of the Mackenzie/ Wismar Bridge and the other at West Watooka. “So we basically put all our hopes in this US$12.2 million project and therefore, at this juncture, people are expecting that there would be some kind of relief because they have been suffering for some time,” Gordon said. He further stated that apart from complaints by consumers, workers have indicated that the automatic electrical generation system is not working. Gordon said that when the power goes off in Linden, the automatic generators are supposed to kick in to power the pumps at the Wisroc Water Treatment Plant but they do not and workers are expected to turn on the generators by hand. Stressing that some workers refuse to turn on the generators by hand, Gordon said: “I agree with the workers … you don’t play around with that sort of thing. We’ve had a few tragedies in Linden before with power and people got burnt and that sort of thing.”
Gordon said concerns were raised over a year ago about delays and interruptions in the construction phases. “So, this new
system that was supposed to be commissioned only the other day, suddenly not functioning,” Gordon continued, “and water is not reaching the households consistently.” He said that he wrote to the minister, who said that he should go ahead on the walkabout to allay the fears of the community but from what he had seen and the explanation of the GWI representatives, who conducted the tour, the situation is worse than he could have imagined.
Not perfect
“Right now, we’re experiencing problems with the filters for both plants and because there’s a problem with the filters, it means, therefore, that production is affected,” Merrel said. He explained that a water system is not perfect and in
building it from the design, one sometimes would have to tweak it for it to work. He said local sand used in the filtration process, disintegrated over time and clogged the filters and while the problem may be simple, GWI cannot move to correct the problem because of the nature of the liability clause in the contractual arrangement between GWI, the contractor and the funding agency. He affirmed that there is adequate water from the various sources in Linden to meet the town’s demand. In reiterating that the system has production problems, Merrel stressed that “parts of the old system have to remain for us to produce the required amount of water.”
While at the Amelia’s Ward reservoir, Gordon asked how much the plants are producing and Merrel said: “Because we are tweaking, percentages might be misleading. But what we can say for this side of the river, the Mackenzie plant needs to continue to be in operation as well as this new plant and for that side of the river, the West Watooka Plant will continue to reinforce what’s coming from the Wisroc Area.” He added that GWI still has the challenge of sorting out the pipeline network on the Wismar shore, especially in the Blueberry Hill area where there is a lot of water loss because processed water somehow gets into the old pipe system while some households, attached to the new system, do not get any water.
Surprise
“I’m surprised to hear GWI talking about maintaining those plants,” Sampson said. “When this entire project came on stream, the idea was to produce water from a clear water source.” He pointed out that both the Mackenzie and West Watooka water treatment plants source water from the Demerara River, which is becoming increasingly polluted. Sampson, a former laboratory worker at the bauxite company said as part of his job he had to produce aluminium sulphate and sodium aluminate, which were used in the water purification processes in the old system in Linden with the clear water sources from Dakoura Creek and the wells at Amelia’s Ward there is no longer need for such chemicals, making the process less costly. He said chemicals will have got be obtained for both the West Watooka and Mackenzie plants, which have respective reservoir capacity of 1.5 million gallons and 1.5 million gallons.
Disappointment
“It is a second Skeldon,” Sampson said, adding that it reminds him of that other failed big project in the country. In expressing his disappointment, Sampson said when the system was under construction an engineer called him and said the project had problems but it seemed as though the contractor had friends in high places because the reservoir at Wisroc had leaks and the contractor was allowed to build a big apron to gloss over the leaks.
“We wasted a lot of money on the project, $2.2 billion,” Sampson said. “As an individual, I used to represent the council in the absence of the IMC Chairman. I am not satisfied …. We have to be honest and straight forward with the residents of this community. We need better water services. Amelia’s Ward is an expanding scheme. Wisroc is expanding. All over the place there is expansion. But have we made provision for ten years down the road? No.”
Emphasizing that the new water system does not make allowance for fire hydrants, Sampson said: “This thing here got to fix and it got to be properly fixed. The reputation of GWI leans on this because you guys going take blows from people. I do hear the stories. We’re supposed to get water 24 x 7.”
Water meter
Morris Fernandes, who lives about 600 metres as the crow flies from the Amelia’s Ward reservoir, said that he has been living at that location for fifteen years and the only drinking water he gets is from rainfall. “If we ain’t get rain, we ain’t get water,” he said sarcastically, adding that he has two black tanks that collect rain water.
He said ten inch water mains have been run in the area and a month ago a water meter was placed in his yard but he has not received a drop of potable water through the GWI main. “When I turn on, I ain’t even getting air,” Fernandes. “Some people say they’re getting air.”
