NWC master plan for Westmoreland under fire

'The lack of water is a national issue and has to be addressed from that perspective, and it is against that background that I am asking for the development plan for the parish'

Karrie Williams, Gleaner Writer

WESTMORELAND:Councillor for the Frome Division of the Westmoreland Parish Council, Paul Wilson, has chided the National Water Commission (NWC) for its handling of the parish's water development master plan.

Wilson made his comments during the regular monthly meeting of the council recently. He said the NWC had shown a strong level of disrespect for the parish council and the residents of Westmoreland by failing to conduct consultations with them regarding the development and implementation of the master plan. He said to date, the NWC also had not responded to a longstanding request made by the council for a copy of the plan.

"The lack of water is a national issue and has to be addressed from that perspective, and it is against that background that I am asking for the development plan for the parish," Wilson said.

"We were told via announcements made two months ago that projects valued at some $1.5 billion dollars are slated to be rolled out over the parish for the next five years, but my eyes have not blessed those projects.

"I know not from whence they were generated. It is unkind and disrespectful to us that our dear, bright brothers and sisters at Marescaux Road in Kingston could believe they can set up a master water plan for the parish of Westmoreland and not bring it to our attention for an opinion," he added.

master plan

In responding to Wilson's concerns, acting customer relations manager for NWC, Caudel Daley, said that the project's master plan was available for perusal at the NWC's Westmoreland parish office. He said that the plan was also available for perusal on the NWC's website.

But Wilson was not satisfied with the response.

"This does not call for a website visit," he said. "This calls for serious sit-down-looking-into-eyeball discussions. This is $1.5 billion dollars of taxpayers' money, and the location of any wrong-size pipe somewhere, based on economic constraints now, cannot be corrected until another two generations. So we have to be absolutely sure. Don't wait until preliminary works have been done to ask the parish council for help."