By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

STATE Minister in the Office of Prime Minister Leon Lundy said the Water and Sewerage Corporation is still working with the Office of the Attorney General to determine the future of its contractual relationship with Aqua-Design, the company that provides water services in Central Eleuthera.

“Unfortunately, the water infrastructure in Eleuthera went under-funded for too many years in parallel with the collapse of the relationship with Aqua-Design, culminating in the August 2021 Supreme Court ruling in Aqua-Design’s favour regarding this very same Central Eleuthera Desalination Plant,” Mr Lundy said in the House of Assembly.

“Extensive investment in Eleuthera’s water infrastructure is now in progress, over $27m+ and climbing, but these works are only now nearing completion, and we expect that residents will see substantial improvements in the reliability of their water supply across the island in the coming months as these investments are completed and commissioned.” 

Central Eleuthera residents have experienced severe water disruption in recent weeks.

Central and South Eleuthera MP Clay Sweeting called the situation dire, adding that the lack of public services is a safety and public health crisis.  

He said help is underway, as 100,000 gallons of water was barged to the island yesterday to fill storage tanks and several initiatives aim to re-establish normalcy.

“The one million imperial gallon tank at the Naval Base site is being finalised with pipes that arrived on the island last week and will be completed within one month,” he said at a press conference. “A new desalination containerised unit of 600,000 imperial gallons is in Freeport and will be shipped to Eleuthera within a week.”

Some Eleuthera residents have also experienced frequent power outages.

Mr Sweeting said parts for an engine in Harbour Island will be installed so that the unit can be operable soon.

He said in North Eleuthera, BPL is set to complete its current transmission line project phase, which is expected to end the three to four-hour power supply disruptions. 

 BPL is also bringing in 6MW of rental generation that will be online by late August to improve capacity in north and central Eleuthera. An additional 2.5MW of generation will be installed at Rock Sound Power Station by late August to increase capacity on the island for customers in South Eleuthera. 

 “I live on Eleuthera,” Mr Sweeting said. “My family is affected by the water issues. These are legacy issues that have affected Eleuthera for years.

 “We do not use this as an excuse, but to remind the public that we are not satisfied with the current state of utilities, but we are fixing it. I stand with the people of Eleuthera and I will continue to advocate for the immediate relief to these issues.”