News

Dominica Water and Sewerage Company (DOWASCO) has reported upgrades to at least seven major water systems on the island in an effort to accomplish one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals ensure that at least fifty percent of persons without access to drinking water would have been given access by the year 2015.

Ideally, Dominica has already surpassed that goal and is well on its way to providing access to drinking water to almost one hundred per cent of its population by the stipulated time.

General Manager of DOWASCO, Bernard Ettinoffe listed the projects that DOWASCO has undertaken in the country towards that goal.

“DOWASCO has a mandate to bring water to everybody in Dominica. That’s the mandate from the government of Dominica- that’s what the government wants to accomplish and I must say that the government has been putting the resources forward to accomplish that.

Over the last three years...we’ve done at least seven major water projects in Dominica. We’ve done Delices, Warner, Campbell, north-end Marigot [and] Penville is nearing completion as we speak. We can expect Penville to be completed within a month. We’ve extended the Giraudel system, we’ve done the Petite Savanne system, and the Morne Bruce storage tank as we speak is completed. We’re just doing some hook-ups so we can fill up the tank, flush, disinfect and commission that system. So we’ve done at least seven or eight major projects costing close to 50 million dollars at this point in time.”

DOWASCO compliments the government of Dominica for those achievements and according to Ettinoffe, the water projects totalling about fifty million dollars would not have been successful without the resourcefulness of the government.

“We have to say thanks that the government has made those resources available. DOWASCO on its own couldn’t do that.”

Ettinoffe was speaking on-site of the new West Coast Water Supply Project, which will consolidate nine independent water systems into one major network. This project is expected to boost the island’s millennium goal efforts.

The overall anticipated completion date for the new west coast water supply project is November 2013.