Clearwater Services personnel and STUCO Production Department head Irwin Jack (centre) loading equipment into a truck.
- EUSTATIUS--Two Clearwater Services workers arrived in St. Eustatius on Saturday and delivered much-needed parts for St. Eustatius Utility Company STUCO’s new water plant. The high-pressure feed water pump for STUCO’s reverse osmosis plant had failed. The company has three water plants and each of these has its own pump. The pump that failed was at one of STUCO’s two older plants.
One day after the pump went down the company managed to bring in a backup pump. STUCO’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Fred Cuvalay said this pump is currently working. The failure did not cause any disruption with the company’s 15-hour water distribution schedule to the public which has been expanded to 5:00am to 8:00pm. Previously, water was only available 5:00-8:00am and 5:00-8:00pm.
Cuvalay said that Monday, June 22, marked the 15th day that this new water-rationing timeframe has been active continuously and without disruption. He said STUCO would continue to provide water for 15 hours a day, and should the need arise for any interruption, they would announce this to the public.
There are two wells at the water plant, which feed water to the entire island. Cuvalay explained that the new plant needs to have its own well. Therefore, the smaller pumps were removed and replaced by a very big pump into one of the wells which is now supplying all the water for the water plant. This work was carried out on Saturday. The other well will be made available for the new plant. The new water plant will probably come online in July/August 2020.
The water rationing will continue as long as the drought persists, Cuvalay said, as the company has a problem with capacity. The breaking of waterlines only makes this problem worse, but even with the waterlines repaired the issue of not having enough capacity for the entire island will continue.
“That is the problem with the drought. Whenever a drought comes, the company is forced to ration the water. If it rains for a couple of days we could go back to 24 hours [of water distribution – Ed]. People will get rain in their cisterns and they will utilise their cisterns and then we see a drop in demand right away,” Cuvalay said.
