Residents of Maxfield Avenue scramble to collect water from this truck, yesterday. A decline in inflows into the Mona Reservoir has forced the National Water Commission to implement restrictions in several communities.
EXPERTS AT the Meteorological Office say that drought being experienced by the parishes of St. Thomas, St. Catherine and Clarendon could become worse, and extend to other parishes as the summer wears on.
"It's a meteorological drought at this point. Preliminary information doesn't suggest that it could be worse than the droughts of 1998 and 1985, but we're in the middle of the summer, and since there has been no significant rainfall in May or June, the NWC is just being proactive in ensuring that the supplies in storage can serve for as long as possible until the rains come in September and October," Basil Fernandez, managing director of the National Water Resources Authority, said.
A meteorological drought is a condition experienced when rainfall amounts are 60 per cent or less of normal rainfall (taken at a 30-year mean) over a period of eight consecutive weeks. The condition becomes severe when amounts are 40 per cent or less, and extreme when 20 per cent or less.
"At this point, we do not have any data for June, but up to the end of the period in May, Clarendon had amounts of 42 per cent, St. Catherine 56 per cent, and St. Thomas 51 per cent. All other parishes were above 60 per cent, but I suspect that these figures may well fall below the normal, and the drought could worsen. I don't have the figures so this is based just on my observations of rainfall in June," said Clifford Mahlung, section head of data processing at the Meteorological Office.
Last week, the National Water Commission (NWC) was forced to take evasive action, and has implemented "modified water restrictions" for customers served by the Mona Reservoir. Affected areas include Hope Pastures, August Town, New Kingston, Rockfort, Tivoli, Mountain View, Downtown Kingston and Beverly Hills, among others.
According to NWC corporate public relations manager Vando Palmer, these customers will experience low pressure during the daytime, and extremely low pressure to no water during the nights.
The cyclical changes in weather patterns in recent times have limited the ability of experts to judge rainfall, and experts fingerpoint environmental concerns such as human intrusion in watershed areas like as Dallas Mountain and Halse Delight, as possible harbingers of serious changes in rainfall patterns.
"Several of the watershed areas in the island are in critical condition and in need or urgent rehabilitation, there is a need for a watershed improvement programme. And water is not just NWC's problem, people need to conserve water, and not just during the dry season, we need to look at how well we can use water, and how we can recycle. We do waste a lot of water in this country, and our consumption is high," Mr. Fernandez said.
"The ODPEM is presently monitoring the situation, and the National Drought Management Committee will be meeting shortly where we will be reviewing the meteorological situation of the present drought and the response actions that will be undertaken to tackle it," Dr. Barbara Carby, director-general of the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) said.
