Short-sighted
Residents and visitors in various districts on the Dutch side have been without running water since Sunday. In Pelican, for example, the water was back on Tuesday, but gone again on Wednesday.
Coping without running water is especially inconvenient for people who have no cistern and/or pump, but even some who do are in the same boat, because the water in their cisterns has finished by now, also because it has not rained much in the last few days. Certainly, having to do without a shower for several days would be a major issue for anyone.
Things can always happen and the power outage caused by an excavator hitting a cable on Sunday obviously contributed to the problem, but one still has to question why so little reserve capacity is available, especially going into the high season. The public is now being told water will be purchased from the French side, but the impression had been created in the past that such an arrangement was already in place.
The problem supposedly will be solved when Air-Fin’s new water plant in the Lowlands comes on line on December 30 according to plan, but in the meantime both residents and the many visitors staying in the affected areas are faced with the prospect of a Christmas holiday season with highly frustrating water problems.
That is not a good situation and it should not have come to that. While Enerserve produces the water distributed by GEBE, government has a clear responsibility to ensure an adequate water supply, as running water is obviously an essential commodity.
The start of the high season should never be the cause of a water shortage. After all, if one allows the building of more accommodations to receive more visitors, the utilities should be geared to that.
The current situation, where the island first has to deal with a lack of water before the new producer can take over, is simply unacceptable and creates the impression of a lack of planning. Residents and visitors should not have to suffer because government and GEBE did not prepare adequately or in time for what they knew was coming. Some would call that short-sighted.
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