NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (October 08, 2020) — Work on a filtration system at Hamilton will continue from this weekend, seven months after the project was delayed due to the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hon. Spencer Brand, Minister responsible for Water Services on Nevis, gave an update on the project on October 08, 2020, when he spoke to the Department of Information of the latest development.

“I am pleased to announce that this coming Saturday we will see some works commencing or continuing at the Hamilton water site. The general public would be aware that because of COVID the technical team from Lakeshore, one of the companies that we have engaged in to undertake the filtration system at Hamilton, was unable to travel to the island of Nevis, and we are happy that they would be available to commence the actual connection of some of the filtration components starting this Saturday…

“We are delighted that we will be able to have these folks on island to do the necessary connection on the water filtration system at Hamilton. This we expect will last for approximately a month as a second team would follow shortly once they would have finished their work. Then another team would come and do some additional connection, and then they should be able to have this wrapped up in about a month’s time,” he said.

Mr. Brand gave an insight into the nature of the work expected from the visiting technical team.

“We expect them to be able to install the media for the filtration system and we also expect them to run the necessary tests and make the necessary checks to ensure that everything is functioning properly before we can connect the system to the water for the island of Nevis,” he said.

The minister noted that the installation of the filtration system forms part of a project to provide additional water for the people of Nevis. So far, a 400,000-gallon water tank has been constructed and commissioned, and flow tests on the Hamilton well, which is expected to be connected to the filtration system, have been done by the Nevis Water Department.

He expressed hope that on completion of the project, thousands of gallons of water would be added to the system especially in the Charlestown area, which would allow for the retirement of old wells in that area.

Mr. Brand noted that there are also additional plans to harvest water to satisfy the growing demand for water on the island but they have not yet materialised due to the pandemic.

“We also hope to embark on some new water drilling throughout the island, and once again because of COVID, because of our financial constraints, we have not been able to proceed with that project. It is an initiative that we hope that we can have going in the new year because we recognise the demand for water continues to rise on a month-by-month basis.

“We also recognise that on the island of Nevis there has been a significant increase in farming, one of the spin offs of COVID, one of the benefits, so to speak, of COVID that we are now seeing more and more persons  getting into farming, and we have to make sure we have the necessary water available to our farmers to be able to produce the necessary provisions for the people of Nevis,” he said.