-flushing may take a few days
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Guyana Water Inc (GWI), Shaik Baksh yesterday said that unpre-cedented sedimentation from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) had fouled the city’s water supply and flushing of the system may take a few days.
Baksh was speaking at a press conference on the sediment-filled brown water which has flowed through pipes over the last few days and angered city residents.
Speaking at the utility’s corporate complex he said that the dredging of the conservancy during the recent dry season, causing a buildup of sludge which eventually made its way into the GWI water storage located in the Shelter Belt and affected the supply in Central Georgetown.
Baksh assured that immediate steps have been taken to flush the water out of the system and this process is ongoing. He also disclosed that this level of poor water quality has never been experienced before and was beyond GWI’s control at this point in time. He estimated that it could take couple of days for the quality of the water supply to return to normal.
According to the CEO, about a month ago, GWI recognized that there was a problem in their canals. He explained that there are two large canals in the Shelter Belt which serve as storage for water coming through the Lamaha Canal from the EDWC. It was observed that something was wrong with the quality of the water coming in, and upon investigation, GWI recognized that the sedimentation load coming into the plant was extremely high.
“As a matter of fact, we never experienced this, such a high sedimentation load. In all the years, many of the managers who are here over 30 years have attested to this fact. We acted immediately. I want to tell you that GWI did not hesitate one moment to try and correct the problem. What we did, we immediately sent a team headed by the Operations Director down into the conservancy and they came back and reported that there were problems with the water coming through… from the conservancy and because of the dredging of that canal in the conservancy area during the drought, the long drought, the longest in years, a lot of sludge built up in the canal and with the heavy rainfall it moved down into our system here, our reservoirs.”
Baksh relayed that immediately, GWI personnel moved to clean two canals, one at the eastern end and the other at the Western end. “On the western end we cleaned that… it’s an onerous task. We brought in additional labourers and we had about 20 to 30 persons cleaning over time. They took about two weeks. We completed the cleaning of that canal and then we moved to the eastern canal to clean that, which is in progress and is to be completed if not this evening [yesterday], by early tomorrow [today].”
He added, “The point I wish to make is that there has been overload of sedimentation into our system which has affected the quality of the water going out. So again, I wish to apologise for this and I want to state also that this is a surface water treatment plant at Shelter Belt which receives water from the conservancy through the Lamaha Canal. It is not an iron removal plant because there is minimal iron in surface water. So, it is really organic matter called sedimentation coming through.”
He related that immediate steps have been taken to continuously flush the system as much as possible and this is ongoing, adding that they are already noticing some improvement. “Already we are seeing some relief. And we have taken samples of the water on a regular basis and we have seen through the cleaning of the canals and so on that the water colour in particular is improving.”
The CEO had on hand, several samples of water taken from various wards in central Georgetown which he said showed that the quality of the water is improving.
When asked about relief being provided to persons who are affected, Baksh told reporters that GWI is prepared to consider some relief to its customers for the period they were affected. He added that the utility will issue a statement in relation to that at a later date.
In order to avoid future occurrences of poor quality of water, the CEO stated there would have to be greater coordination between the East Demerara Water Conservancy, NDIA, and GWI. (Subhana Shiwmangal)
A photo of discoloured, sediment-filled water posted on Facebook.
