The ongoing water crisis in St. Eustatius is obviously a serious matter, as lack of readily available potable water constitutes a major health and hygiene risk. Some blame the Netherlands and its administrators which have basically run the overseas public entity island the past several years.
In the newspaper of May 27, Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management Cora van Nieuwenhuizen Wijbenga said regular water rationing on the island would last until the end of the year. She was replying to concerns expressed by Second Chamber of Parliament member Nevin Özütok, who followed up with a new set of questions.
On June 3, a front-page headline read “Statia school closed due to lack of water.” That same edition carried a story in which National Ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen announced an inquiry into this matter and the very next day there was news of a majority Second Chamber motion asking government to urgently address the issue.
Finally, on Monday utilities provider STUCO said it hoped to resolve the water struggles by October. The company explained that the number of local connections had grown by 15 per cent in the past four to five years, and average consumption by more than 20 per cent.
During the current drought demand exceeds the existing production capacity, while an unexpected problem with leaking pipes in the high-pressure zone at Lowertown had to be quickly fixed. Intention is to gradually extend the distribution hours. There are three projects to increase both supply and storage that ought to structurally resolve the issue.
It is no doubt a bad situation, but to put things in perspective one should remember that not too long ago, residents depended almost entirely on their cisterns and additional water had to be shipped in if needed. After the plant was installed trucks still had to bring the water to households and fill their cisterns for quite some time.
Nowadays much of the island has running tap water piped directly into their home or business, except there is not always enough. While currently a nuisance, in the grand scheme of things that seems just a minor – be it annoying – last hurdle.
