Minister of Health Daniel Cumming has criticised the former Unity Labour Party (ULP) government over the seven‑year delay in implementing a desalination project for Bequia.
“I find it very difficult to understand why, for more than seven years now, the Italian government offered us as a people a desalination plant for Bequia… For whatever reason, that project has not taken off the ground, and it is a crying shame,” he said.
Cummings, who has ministerial responsibility for potable water, said on NBC Radio on Wednesday that the project would be fast-tracked, noting that it, and similar projects in the Grenadines, could help alleviate water scarcity there.
The West Kingstown MP who became health minister in December after the New Democratic Party (NDP) won the Nov. 25 general election, said the proposed plant would have included storage and distribution lines, supplying treated seawater to residents.
“The CWSA is actively pursuing that project in the short term, so that we’ll have desalination plants on most of the islands to get some water going,” Cummings said.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines is being affected by severe drought, with widespread rationing in St. Vincent, which has rivers, springs and streams and a municipal water supply.
However, in the Grenadines, where the harvesting of rainwater is the source of most of the water for drinking and household use, Cummings described the situation as a “super critical” crisis.
He said that the authorities were “doing everything humanly possible” to stabilise supplies in the short term while pushing ahead with long‑delayed desalination and transmission projects.
Bequia, despite its proximity to the mainland, is facing “severe shortages of water”, Cummings said of the largest of the Grenadine islands, which is just nine miles from Kingstown.
Union Island, Canouan and Mayreau: private and resort plants
Cummings pointed to a mix of private and resort‑linked desalination facilities that are part of the short‑term picture:
On Union Island, he said, there is a privately built desalination plant by a local investor but it has not been commissioned as yet.
“In discussion with that gentleman, that plant is expected to be commissioned very shortly, so that Union Island will soon be able to have water from that desal plant.
“The mechanisms would be… the water would have to be transported by tankers to the various parts of the island,” he added, noting the absence of distribution mains.
On Canouan, he said residents traditionally receive some water from the resort’s desalination plant.
“… but they are having issues with their own supply, and so they’re not able to provide as much as normally they would be able to.”
On Mayreau, the situation was helped when Mustique Company recently installed a small desalination plant in the bay.
“… so that the situation on Mayreau is not as bad, but water goes in addition to that by the boats to that area.”
Solar‑powered desalination and new technology
Looking ahead, Cummings said advances in desalination technology and solar energy will allow the new systems to rely far less on fossil fuels and harness solar energy to produce the water and to pump it up to storage.
He argued that modern desalination is less energy‑intensive and cheaper than it was 10 to 15 years ago, and that solar systems are now more accessible.
“The technology has improved on both fronts … You use less energy… and at the same time, the cost has gone down and the availability has improved of solar systems,” Cummings said.
“So that when there is no sun in the evening, the water in the elevated storage can be used to flow by gravity, so that people can have a constant supply of quality water on the Grenadine Islands.”