SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — Drought takes toll in St Elizabeth, Manchester....Mayor of Mandeville Brenda Ramsay said it was costing as much as $18,000 -$20,000 to truck water.

 BY GARFIELD MYERS Editor-at-Large South/Central Bureau  Thursday, July 30, 2015    
SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — There was a healthy shower of rain in sections of south eastern St Elizabeth on July 18.
However, there has been no rain since and when asked about the last time rain fell before July 18, a group of young women at a shop in Ballards Valley laughingly told the Jamaica Observer "can't recall".
01The farming communities of south eastern St Elizabeth and southern Manchester are parched, rendering farming impossible in the absence of water, and with every passing day the local authorities are finding it more difficult and expensive to truck drinking water to thirsty residents.
Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth South Eastern Richard Parchment believes the effect of the current drought is even worst than that of last year, which was described by many as the worst in living memory.
"The thing is that since the drought of last year there has been no recharge or refilling of rain water storage tanks, so the effect now is even worse," said Parchment.
Less than half of St Elizabeth's residents have access to piped water from the National Water Commission (NWC). Those without NWC water are reliant on community catchment/storage tanks, referred to locally as 'parish tanks' supervised by the parish councils; and household tanks.
But as the seasonal drought takes hold, many catchment tanks are now dry, forcing those who can afford it to buy expensive trucked water from private operators. It is also placing a heavy burden on parish councillors and members of parliament to provide residents at the lower end of the socio-economic scale with trucked 'social water'.
Chairman of the St Elizabeth Parish Council and mayor of Black River, Everton Fisher said the two trucks operated by the St Elizabeth Parish Council "have been overwhelmed by the demand for water".
The parish council is buying water from the NWC at $8,000 per truck load and, as has occurred in the past, Fisher is urging a special dispensation so domestic water for trucking can be accessed at a cheaper rate. 
Fisher was thankful that the water ministry has been able to grant "about $6-7 million" over the last four months to fund water trucking. He was hopeful that special representation to the local government ministry would also bear fruit.
In Manchester, chairman of the parish council and Mayor of Mandeville Brenda Ramsay said the situation was also very challenging. "Contrary to what a lot of people think, we are also having a very serious drought in Manchester," she told the Observer. more

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANOTHER RACIST POLITICIAN ? Republican Gene Alday, Mississippi Lawmaker, Says Blacks Don't Work And Get 'Crazy Welfare Checks' ...The State Rep. says he was against increased funding for education, in particular funding to improve literacy...Alday also told the newspaper about a time he visited an emergency room. “I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (black people) were in there being treated for gunshots," Alday was quoted as saying.

Image
The Huffington Post  |  By Ed Mazza Email Posted: 02/17/2015 1:59 am EST  A Mississippi lawmaker says racist comments recently attributed to him  were taken out of context  and supposed to be off the record. State Rep. Gene Alday, a Republican says racist comments State Rep. Gene Alday, a Republican, told The Clarion-Ledger he was against increased funding for education, in particular funding to improve literacy. During his explanation, Alday said he comes " from a town where all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call 'welfare crazy checks .' They don't work." Alday also told the newspaper about a time he visited an emergency room.  “I liked to died. I laid in there for hours because they (black people) were in there being treated for gunshots," Alday was quoted as saying.  Alday didn't deny the comments attributed to him. However, he said he was not a racist. " I am definitely not a racist, at all ," Alday told Missis...
Read more

MATH PUZZLE : Here's The Answer To That Fruit Math Puzzle That's Driving Everyone Coconuts.... What's half a coconut plus one apple plus three bananas? Is the answer 12, 14, 16, 18 or 20. Go to www.RulaBrownNetwork.com for the correct answer.

Image
 02/18/2016 02:01 am ET It's one of those Facebook posts that's all over the place, and -- like " the dress " or the  hidden panda  -- everyone seems to have a different take on it.  What is half a coconut plus one apple plus three bananas?  On the surface, it would seem the apple has a value of 10, the bananas a value of four and the coconut a value of two. And if that were the end of the story, the answer would be 2 + 10 + 4 = 16.  But in the final frame, the fruit are slightly different.  There is half a coconut, instead of two halves in the earlier example equation that establishes a value of two. And instead of the four bananas representing the value of four, there are just three bananas.  If the numbers are reduced along with the portions of fruit, you get a totally different answer: 1 + 10 + 3 = 14.   Which is the correct answer? Like the dress, the answer is in how you see it.... See Rula Brown'...
Read more

Police: 22 y-o Devon Staples shoots off firework from top of his head, dies

Image
CALAIS, Maine (AP) — A young man who was drinking and celebrating the Fourth of July tried to launch a firework off the top of his head, fatally injuring himself, authorities said Sunday. Devon Staples and his friends had been drinking and setting off fireworks Saturday night in the backyard of a friend's home in the small eastern Maine city of Calais, said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety. Staples, 22, of Calais, placed a fireworks mortar tube on his head and set it off, he said. The firework exploded, killing Staples instantly, McCausland said. His death is the first fireworks fatality in Maine since the state legalized fireworks on Jan. 1, 2012, authorities said. Calais is on the Canadian border near New Brunswick. State fire marshals were also investigating several other Fourth of July fireworks accidents involving injuries in Friendship, Jefferson, Lebanon and Woodstock. They said most of the accidents involved burns and eye ...
Read more