Kristen Gyles | The perennial drought

I have now had an uninterrupted water supply for two days straight. This is truly cause for jubilation since, as of July, when the NWC announced its annual water restriction schedule, water has been a scarce commodity. It looks like the ‘drought’ that caused all of this is finally over, after two months. Although, I’m pretty sure I saw rain this week, saw rain last week and got soaked by rain the week before that, but who am I to assess weather conditions?

Jamaica is perhaps one of the few places, if not the only place, that suffers from having both too little water and too much water. One minute, floodwaters are threatening to sweep away cars and uproot trees, and often not very long after, NWC introduces a water lock-off schedule to prevent the drying out of the Mona Reservoir and Hermitage Dam.

The shortage occurs practically every year. Usually between March and April, we hear there is a drought. Within a month or so after that we hear that the Mona Reservoir is starting to empty and water lock-offs are unavoidable. By about August we are back in the clear. And by ‘we’, I refer to residents within the corporate area since many rural towns just don’t know what it is like to have a constant supply of water.

Consider that last year, one of the few years in which we didn’t get the expected ‘drought’ advisory, we were spared the usual water lock-offs distinctly because of Hurricane Beryl. It took the passage of a hurricane for us to not have the usual two to three months of water restriction. In other words, unless we get rain so heavy and so prolonged that it is destructive to homes and other property, water lock-offs are probable.

CRISIS SITUATION

Does that not sound like a crisis situation? Why has it been so difficult to find ways to capture and preserve the millions of gallons that slip away unused every year?

What has been the solution over the years? Long speeches about the obvious effects of climate change, and the widescale distribution of big black water tanks.

In a world where we can’t do any better, it is good that the government can at least support families affected by the water shortage, by providing water tanks. The JLP’s list of achievements booklet distributed leading up to the recent general election, told us that the government had distributed 13,000 water tanks to help families store water during shortages.

That really is great. However, after decades of begging for another water reservoir to supply the residents of Kingston, such an initiative feels piecemeal. Further, while I would not want to contemplate life in the summer in Jamaica without a water tank, I am hard-pressed not to ask how effective the water lock-offs really are when every other person has a big water tank that is being refilled to the brim as soon as the water supply is restored in the wee hours of the night. How much less water is really being consumed during these extended periods of water restriction?

Another pain-point is the unpredictability of the lock-offs. For instance, for several days during the two months of lock-offs, when water was scheduled to be restored at 6 p.m. in my very central residential community, the pipes remained dry until somewhere between 10 pm and 1 am. I have heard various technical explanations for why this may be so, but no explanation is pacifying when one has to stay awake to welcome the arrival of water.

DRASTIC ADJUSTMENTS

To state clearly, whenever we are subject to the usual water-rationing regime, households are left to make drastic adjustments that hurt financially and that create extreme inconvenience. Individual consumers do not always have the capacity to store water on the scale that allows them to function for extended periods during times of drought. So, those who can afford it are forced to truck water to their homes. Others simply have to bleach through the night waiting on the restoration of water to get some laundry done.

These prolonged dry spells don’t only create personal inconveniences. They also disrupt business operations and government services alike. I distinctly remember during my high school days being sent home from school because the school simply had no water. Such a thing should never happen in 2025 because of a problem that resurfaces year after year.

Earlier this year, the government signalled that it would be looking into the possibility of increasing the storage capacity of the Hermitage dam by either raising the crest level of the dam or by constructing an additional reservoir to capitalise on the overflows from the existing dam. This, of course, is music to my ears, except it is a familiar tune. For years we have discussed building a new dam, expanding one of the existing dams, desilting the dams and various other strategies to address the water shortage issue, but here we are, still without consistent water supply.

Our water management problem has to become a national priority. Upgrading minor water supply systems and distributing tanks certainly helps, but we need a structural solution to our inability to harvest water on a large scale. A big black tank at the back of every home cannot be the national solution to our water harvesting issues – certainly not in the land of wood and water.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com