Further water restrictions coming for the Corporate Area

The National Water Commission says further restrictions could be imposed on water supplies in the Corporate Area as levels at the two main catchment facilities remain low.

The NWC says, as of Monday, the level at Hermitage Dam stood at 39.3 per cent of capacity and was continuing to decline. The levels at Mona Reservoir also fell, reaching 32.9 per cent of capacity.

NWC Corporate Public Relations Manager Delano Williams, speaking Monday on Radio Jamaica’s Beyond the Headlines, said the Commission could move to an alternate-day water supply arrangement, arguing that “there's no sense in telling everybody, for instance, 6:00 AM to 4:00 PM and half of the network doesn't get it.”

Accordingly, he said it was decided to further segment the supply schedule.

“Some persons will get on a Tuesday, for instance, and then on a Wednesday other persons get water, which gives us a better opportunity to serve you with, with some semblance of decent pressures.”

Mr Williams said other measures will be implemented for some areas if the situation worsens:

“There are some locations that we can and will be publishing within the course of this week that we have to pull them out of the, the main regulation. But we have some forecast this week for some rains.”

He noted, however, that even though there have been rains in recent weeks, “they are not necessarily blanketing the entire KSA (Kingston & St. Andrew) area… So we're hoping the watershed might be lucky this week. If not, then our, our adjustments will definitely have to come into play.”