Caye Caulker Welcomes Bigger and Better Water Amenities  

Today was a big day for the folks in Caye Caulker Village. They celebrated the arrival of two notable upgrades to their water services. Belize Water Services Limited, along with the Government of Belize, kicked off the construction of a brand-new wastewater treatment facility and expanded the island’s reverse osmosis plant. We were there to catch all the action and find out how these new amenities will make life better for everyone on the island. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with the scoop.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

Around two thousand people call the beautiful island of Caye Caulker home. With tourism booming, it’s more important than ever to have reliable water and wastewater services to keep everyone’s quality of life top-notch. That’s why the Government of Belize and Belize Water Services have teamed up to expand the island’s reverse osmosis plant and build a new wastewater treatment facility. Executive Chairman Cornelio Acosta Jr. shares how the reverse osmosis plant is making a big difference for the community.

 

Cornelio Acosta Jr, Executive Chairman, BWS

“Every year we have challenges in Caye Calker in meeting demand. The island consumes about two hundred and one thousand gallons per day. And what we could have previously met was around one hundred and ninety gallons. In other words, we’re meeting ninety-five percent of the daily demand of the island. The board management and of course the government ave prioritized the need in meeting these scarcities that we’ve been facing. So we had done a more analysis and had proceeded to purchase a one hundred fifty desalination plant, which would then give us a capacity now of up to three hundred thousand gallons per day meeting well enough what is the demand, at least for now, to the next ten to fifteen years.”

 

As the temperatures climb, so does our thirst. Thanks to a $1.5 million investment in the plant’s expansion, Belize Water Services (BWS) is now delivering clean, better-tasting tap water to everyone on the island. Prime Minister John Briceño shared some exciting news too—there are plans to roll out this system across the entire country.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“They got new equipment, a salt system that removes the taste of chlorine so that the water is safe, but it mi got wa lee bad aftertaste. Now with this one, it’s a pilot project here, and in the crooked tree. And now, as you notice, I’m sure you all tasted the water. It is good, so you don’t have to go buy water. So you could save a lot of money for our citizens. That project now, through an IDB loan that we’ve been working on, we’re going to go now into more and more of our communities to be able to install that so that they could also use the portable water to drink and not just to bathe and wash dishes and so forth.”

 

Ground was also broken for a new forty-million-dollar wastewater treatment plant and collection system. Acosta explains that it is necessary to begin working on this facility now so that the company can continue to provide water services in the long term.

 

Cornelio Acosta Jr

“One of the strategies that BWS has undergone now is looking at redundancies and contingency plans, a lot of the times we rely primarily on our single source, for example, Belize District, on the river and we have several systems that are direct production to distribution. Caye Caulker has a storage facility, but if something were to happen to the plant like last year, we had some challenges the plant went down right during the easter period  And it created challenges for us. So we decided you know what it’s time to have a redundancy plan having us an alternate site that could also provide storage in the event that there is a natural disaster occurring or that the plant may need to undergo some time that it will be going down and we’ll have enough capacity to withstand and provide to the caye.”

 

After the inauguration, Prime Minister Briceno and the BWS team visited the Caye Caulker R.C. Primary School and Ocean Academy High School where they awarded grants of five thousand dollars to assist children with their school fees.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“What BWSL did they give a grant of five thousand dollars. They spoke with the principal to point out those that need that can’t be making their fees. And so the principal will be making those paying those fees on behalf of BWSL for both primary school and high school. I have also made a commitment. I’m going to give them another five thousand \ through the chairlady of the village with miss Pott, and she will work with the principal to ensure that we get it to the children that need it. And it’s important for us to be able to give the proper support to our children, to be able to learn and not have to be worrying whether they are going to be sent home because they can’t pay their fees.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.