‘Drop iN THE bucket’

Describing the Government’s allocation for water trucking to schools as “a good first drop in the bucket”, Anniona Jones, president of the Jamaica Association of Principals of Secondary Schools (JAPSS), says more sustainable measures will be needed to cope with the ongoing drought conditions affecting the island.

“Now we need a regular drip so the bucket can fill up to give the capacity required so the children can get what they deserve,” she told The Gleaner yesterday.

The Government announced an allocation of $500 million for drought relief ahead of the reopening of schools next week.

The National Water Commission (NWC) will be given $150 million to provide water trucks to schools, health centres and other critical facilities. Another $200 million will be channelled through members of parliament to provide assistance in their constituencies, while $150 million will be distributed among municipalities to help communities outside the NWC’s service network.

Jones said while she welcomed efforts to keep schools sanitised and students hydrated, the allocation would not be enough to address the underlying problem.

“Our position is clear; schools need water to function. With no water, we cannot have no class, so if we want schools to operate regularly, we must have regular potable water,” she said.

Jones noted that some schools have already reopened their doors for orientation this week and have had to divert funds to purchase trucked water.

“Some schools have had a truck or two of water delivered. The challenge though is when is the next one going to come and, in some instances, we have already exhausted the available budget, just filling up the existing tanks from trucked water at a cost,” she said.

Dr Mark Smith, principal of Munro College, revealed that the school is spending approximately $100,000 almost daily to truck 16,000 gallons of water to the St Elizabeth-based boarding school. He said the drought was placing significant pressure on the school’s finances.

“This is putting a lot of pressure on our budget; you budget with certain circumstances you expect to play out. When a super El Nino occurs, we were not budgeting for that, and so we now have to be looking at contingencies,” he said.

Additionally, he said the severity of the drought has made securing that volume of water increasingly difficult.

“We are in a serious position right now because we simply don’t have enough water to properly run the school. [Currently] we use roughly about four 4,000 gallon trucks a day as a boarding school and the reality is we can’t even get it from the wells because there are so many trucks lining up for water so, even if we contract trucks, we not getting the water because the demand is so great,” he said.

The institution has a population of about 1,020 students, approximately half of whom are boarders. Additionally, there are 161 staff members.

“It’s like a small scheme, the amount of people you have living, drinking, bathing, flushing toilets multiple times a day, plus staff, it’s quite a bit ... and we talking about three meals a day ... it really is a demand on us to be able to get potable water consistently,” he said.

He said the school had tried to mitigate the effects of the drought by putting in another water lift station on the hilly property, “but even then it depends on the NWC to have water in its line (with enough pressure) for the number of persons in that area,” he said.

The school has also invested in its water-harvesting capabilities over the years, but a growing population has meant greater demand for water. Two back-to-back hurricanes have also caused significant damage to its roof guttering system.

“We are [currently] looking into our strategic development plan as to how we can expand the amount of water storage facilities that we have, more reservoirs and tanks,” he said.

Currently, sporting teams are boarding on campus, and orientation was held last week.

However, Smith said that when school reopens next week, water restrictions will be implemented.

“Right now at Munro you bathe anytime you want, but we may have to start to limit it to morning showers and an afternoon shower,” he said.

He said the school had been exploring waterless urinals and had received estimates for the systems.

A waterless urinal system functions as a “dry” system. When urine enters the bowl, it flows via gravity into a specialised trap or cartridge located at the base of the unit. Modern systems utilise a liquid sealant that ensures that sewer gases and odours are physically blocked from lingering in the restroom environment.

Additionally, he said the school constantly monitors water levels, and the on-campus plumber regularly checks for leaks.

“That is the kind of pressure we are under to tighten up and be as efficient as possible with the water,” he said.

Meanwhile, Jones emphasised that schools will need regularly trucked water delivered to their facilities, with little or no cost, to effectively function. However, in the meantime, she lauded principals who have been doing what they can to prepare for school next week.

“We have cleaned our tanks, some of us have purchased additional tanks. We have serviced, in many instances, our pumps. We have put things in place to write for sponsorship from corporate entities to increase our catchment supply, our pump facilities, and, in many instances, it is just not enough,” she said.

sashana.small@gleanerjm.com