Portland women express water safety concerns
WOMEN from Portland Saturday said they were concerned about the safety of using the water from the Swift River because of the considerable growth of algae since the last major flood there a year and four months ago.
“Brown and green algae have accumulated in the water very quickly and that is something that we never used to see before,” Lindel Jathan told approximately 400 women participants at the Bureau of Women’s Affairs national conference held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston.
“Someone needs to tell us whether it is safe for use,” Jathan, the spokesperson for the women from Portland, said.
The theme for the conference was ‘Womanaging freshwater for life.’
According to Jathan, the women were also concerned about the rapid rate at which the water levels in the river had fallen. This, she said, was perhaps due to the loss of vegetation on the river banks.
She called for consideration to be given to putting in a proper water system in Portland so that when periods of drought came residents would not have difficulty.
“We have a lot of rain in Portland but it just runs off like that and when the dry times come we have problems getting water. There is no large scale storage system for water in Portland,” she said. “We are asking for some consideration to be given to establishing a proper water system for our area.”
Jathan also called for an educational programme informing women and other citizens about the proper use of the river as well as better water management skills.
“We need an educational programme to tell the people how to use the river so that we as women can help to protect the river too,” she said. “There are river wardens who say that the river should not be used for washing and so on, but until alternate ways of river use are identified or alternative water options shown, what are the people going to do?”
Jathan’s concerns were, however, briefly addressed by managing director of the Water Resources Authority, Basil Fernandez, who said that one of the problems with setting up a large scale water storage system was that Portland was made up of volcanic rocks which were extremely hard to dig.
“There are no wells in Portland,” Fernandez said. “You can’t dig into the volcanic rock as that would just be a waste of time and money.” The options being explored, he said, were the expansion of projects, such as a larger pumping station currently located in one area to reach more people, as well as focussing on the methods used to access water.
“One project going on there now is to pump water through the sand in the river banks to the pumping stations. So work is being done,” Fernandez told the Observer. “The Government has also recently signed a contract with the European Investment Bank to deal with the water issue in Portland.”
At the same time, a representative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Helene-Marie Gosselin, spoke of the importance of involving women in policymaking decisions and issues.
“The International Women’s Day, first celebrated in 1911 by a few countries, is now rallying women from all over the world, co-ordinating efforts to expand women’s rights and encourage their participation in the political and economic process,” Gosselin said. She stressed the importance of the inclusion of women in dealing with water issues.
“In many societies, water is the core of women’s traditional responsibilities, collecting and storing water, caring for children, cooking, cleaning, and maintaining sanitation,” she said. “Women play a key role in educating children to preserve and use water. Their interest in water awareness is major, since it is they who look after the household and who often fall sick due to contaminated water or lack of hygiene.”
Each year, she said, nearly two million children die from water-borne diseases worldwide — some of which could have been avoided by children simply washing their hands.