Saint Lucia’s water supply system faces a complex mix of challenges – from climate change and ageing infrastructure to the island’s varied terrain – that regularly disrupt service to households and businesses.
In recent weeks, the Water and Sewerage Company (WASCO) has outlined a series of upgrades aimed at tackling persistent shortages, particularly in the north. But officials caution that full improvements will take time.
Ageing infrastructure, low flows and climate extremes
In an interview with St Lucia Times in March, Khalidd Vidal, WASCO’s production, treatment and quality manager, said the reasons for service interruptions vary by community but often come down to low flows at intakes, clogged infrastructure and damage to key transmission lines.
“Some of our intakes are very unique, especially in the south, and in some cases we face damage to our raw water or potable water lines,” he explained.
Dry season conditions are already straining supplies. “When you have less water going into the treatment plant, you obviously produce less,” Vidal said. He added that climate change has made rainfall patterns less predictable, with hotter, drier years alternating with wetter ones.
Paradoxically, heavy rainfall can also disrupt supply by triggering landslides that block intakes. “It’s like using a strainer; if it gets clogged, you won’t get much passing through,” Vidal said.
Terrain, pressure issues in the north
Northern communities at higher elevations and the farthest ends of the network, such as Cap Estate, Cas En Bas and Piat, are among the hardest to serve. Even when production is high, it can take time for pipelines to fully recharge, leaving these areas with low pressure.
Hotels in the north are also affected. Some, like the Royalton, have turned to desalination and trucking water to maintain operations.
Community impact and coping measures
Residents in parts of Vieux Fort say the situation was far worse before new treatment plants supplying their community were installed in 2020. “It’s like my mother used to say, if it rains, there’s no water; if the sun’s shining, there’s no water,” said resident Anna-Kaye Boodho, recalling years of sporadic supply. Families relied heavily on tanks, drums and rainwater collection, and in severe cases, turned to rivers or standpipes in other districts.
Her grandfather told St Lucia Times interruptions could last two to three days without warning. “Sometimes you would be in the shower and the water just shuts down,” he said. “Since they redeveloped the plant, it’s better now… we’re not having so much problems when it comes to water.”
A solar-powered treatment plant with increased storage capacity was also installed in Des Barras, Babonneau where water supply issues prevailed. “Now, Des Barras has a huge storage tank by their standards because the community is not that large…in an event where there was probably no water or probably there was a lot of cloud coverage where the plant was not producing as much as it normally would, we now have a failsafe for that which is a greater storage capacity in that area,” said Vidal.
Infrastructure upgrades underway
Yet water supply issues have persisted and worsened in some areas. WASCO says major work is planned to address the root causes of shortages. This includes an upgrade of the raw water line from the John Compton Dam through Millet, and rehabilitation of the Theobalds Water Treatment Plant, the main facility serving the north, funded by a US$4.2 million loan from the CARICOM Development Fund.
Theobalds, built in 1993 and expanded in 2007, is now operating at roughly 40 per cent efficiency. Six of its 10 filters are malfunctioning due to corrosion, forcing reliance on inefficient backwashing that wastes water.
CEO Zilta George Leslie said restoring the plant to full capacity is “critical” given rising demand in the north’s rapidly developing communities. A US$670 000 technical assistance grant will also support energy-efficient equipment, rainwater harvesting systems for vulnerable areas, and community training.
However, Leslie stressed that other projects must be completed before the full benefits are felt, including a 5km pipeline upgrade from Millet to Vanard and a 2km pipeline between Bonneterre and Gros Islet.
Water security a growing concern
Vidal warned that climate change could alter both the timing and intensity of Saint Lucia’s dry and wet seasons, making it harder to plan. “We will have to find new ways to store and produce water because there is no guarantee of the amount of relief we’re going to get every single year,” he said.
WASCO continues to truck water to areas without a mains supply and urges households to invest in storage. “The only way you’re going to be able to mitigate situations where you don’t have water is by water storage,” Vidal said.
While officials say the planned upgrades will improve reliability over the next few years, they acknowledge that Saint Lucia’s water challenges, shaped by geography, weather extremes and infrastructure limitations, are unlikely to disappear entirely.
The problems articulated by WASCO for the water woes in St. Lucia have been in existence for decades, and the same failed solutions are highlighted as remedies. Concerning global warming, WASCO needs to expand the watershed region to the communities. It’s quite ironic that WASCO would have a vast area with a tiny watershed and expect a large volume of water in the dry season. This certainly is madness. Those miniature watersheds should be expanded immediately, providing a greater source of water yearly. Is WASCO familiar with the term boundary valves? The WASCO water system should be integrated as much as possible and introduce boundery valves to delineate various zones. In case of low volume or water pressure (flow), those boundary valves could be adjusted to meet the public demand.
In a few years, we will see a similar article by WASCO making the same complaints without any concrete solutions.
Wasco should invest in more storage. When water is plenty it goes to waste, take micoud for example
Wasco just need more storage facilities, both to store water coming from the intake to the water plant and storage from the water plant for distribution. If you go to some of the facilities there are constant overflow from the intake to the plant a bigger storage facility would prevent water wastage from the intake and would prevent any interruption when it rains. Have seen the plant in thamazo grand riviere Dennery, the water comes from the intake into a small holding tank so whenever it rains water production must stop because of runoff to the system. So if it rains for a week, this means no production and you distribution tank levels goes down, so there’s no choice but to stop distribution until you can Start production again. There must be atleast a million gallons to you holding tank from the intake.
Water conservation/storage should be mandatory for households/ businesses/ hotels seeking approval for building and form part of the planned drawings. Of course, property values, location and viability in building cisterns/tanks must be considered in establishing guidelines.
If water storage is identified as one of the solutions, then WASCO needs to establish service areas and determine the required usage of these areas in order to adequately size storage, pressure, and flow boosting equipment for these individual service areas. Simply conveying the water from the source (treatment plant) to the end user will not suffice. The transmission lines serve only as a medium to transport the water. Other infrastructure is required to provide for pressure losses along the way and to ensure that supply is consistent. Planning is essential in alleviating the current water woes on the island; whether it be for extended dry spells or extended rainfall periods or otherwise.