Bequia gets Desalination Plant
Water woes for residents of Paget Farm Bequia will soon be a thing of the past.{{more}}
The residents, who have traditionally relied on rainfall to provide their drinking water, will soon have a new water source with the completion of a desalination plant in Paget Farm.
On Thursday, October 20, 2011, the Agency for Public Information went to Paget Farm for a first hand look at the system and the process of converting salt water into fresh water.
The Desalination Plant is a pilot project funded by Global Environmental Fund through the World Bank and the Caribbean Climate Change Centre, with the implementation agency being the local Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment.
The plant can produce 34,560 gallons of fresh water in a 24-hour period. The Desalination Plant is fully operational. However, Deputy Director of Grenadines Affairs Herman Belmar said they are now working on a second part of the project, which will see the storage of the water and subsequent distribution to the residents. Belmar said a 20,000-gallon storage tank, which has already been shipped from Singapore, will be placed at the top of Paget Farm in an area known as Derrick Hill, which is above all the houses in the area.
Once the land is cleared and a concrete structure is built to store the tank, Belmar said this will clear the way for the Government and the Central Water and Sewerage Authority to commence the final phase of the piping to the communities.
Belmar estimates that the process will be completed no later than December of this year.
Furthermore, Belmar said that âthis project is solving an age old and crushing need of the communityâ. He added that he is excited to âsee water in Bequiaâ and noted that with the coming on stream of this project, it will be very unlikely that they will have to import water from mainland St. Vincent.(API)
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