St. Lu­cia has be­come the lat­est Caribbean is­land to im­ple­ment wa­ter ra­tioning mea­sures as the re­gion con­tin­ues to feel the ef­fect of a pro­longed dry pe­ri­od.

Gov­ern­ment has ap­proved the fourth wa­ter-re­lat­ed emer­gency in the past 10 years, and the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Com­pa­ny Inc. (WAS­CO), Zil­ta George-Leslie, said that once the or­der is pub­lished in the of­fi­cial Gazette, any­one who con­tra­venes the mea­sure would be com­mit­ting an of­fence and li­able to a fine of not less than EC$3,000 (One EC dol­lar=US$0.37 cents) or im­pris­on­ment of not less than six months, or both up­on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion.

She said that a fur­ther fine of not less than EC$50 would be im­posed dai­ly if the breach con­tin­ues.

“All con­sumers of potable wa­ter in St. Lu­cia are there­fore urged to re­strict the use of potable wa­ter for non-potable us­es,” George-Leslie told re­porters, adding that WAS­CO is rec­om­mend­ing es­sen­tial us­age as wa­ter nec­es­sary to sus­tain hu­man life, do­mes­tic an­i­mals’ lives, and main­tain hy­giene and san­i­ta­tion stan­dards.

WAS­CO said there would be re­stric­tions on ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing us­ing potable wa­ter to wa­ter lawns, pres­sure wash, mix con­crete, and fill swim­ming pools.

George-Leslie said that as of Tues­day, May 14, the John Comp­ton Dam re­port­ed wa­ter lev­els of 318.6 feet, an es­ti­mat­ed 14.4 feet be­low the spill­way, drop­ping six inch­es dai­ly.

She said that the Hill 20 sys­tem had shown a 50  per cent re­duc­tion and that WAS­CO’s South­ern in­take re­duc­tion ranges from 29 to 80 per cent in some ar­eas.

WAS­CO said as a re­sult, it would be im­ple­ment­ing dry sea­son mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures as well as an is­land-wide shar­ing ini­tia­tive as part of its com­mit­ment to ‘re­spon­si­ble re­source man­age­ment.’

WAS­CO said that it has al­so in­creased the num­ber of crews deal­ing with leak re­pairs.

CAS­TRIES, St. Lu­cia, May 15, CMC – 

CMC/af/ir/2024