Amazone shipment in murky waters

AR Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Auke Piek, speaking at the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA) conference at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain last week, told a media briefing his company is reading itself to ship surface water to Barbados somewhere around November 24-25 and that shipment would get there within four or five days.

Mr Piek said the ‘trial run’ was reportedly in accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with the Barbados government in April of 2015. Piek said, “We would like to have the launch of the flexbag (the mode of transportation) on November 21-22 and after that it will be sent to Barbados with drinkable surface water from the rivers

“The journey should take four to five days,” Piek added “using a tugboat to pull the floating flexbag/flextank. We will test (the water) throughout our trial to see how the water behaves during transportation.”

He said the water, drawn from the Coppename and Suriname rivers, had been tested by an independent firm at various points inland, starting about 30 kilometres inside.

Piek told reporters the bags (containing the water) would be monitored all the time throughout the five-day journey for water quality during the transportation process, and would be equipped with satellite navigation systems for tracking purposes.

Piek said although Barbados had agreed to accept this first shipment, he could not say how the water would be used since ‘this is a test run”. He did say that that because of the sustained drought on the island, “there is an urgent need for fresh water, both for agricultural and industry, but also for human beings”.

However, according to a report in the Barbados newspaper The Nation, the Minister of Water Resource Management, Dr David Estwick and the acting general manager of the Barbados Water Authority (BWA) Dr John Mwansa distanced themselves from Piek’s announcement. As a matter fact Estwick told the Weekend Nation he was not aware of any water being shipped to the island.

He denied that a decision had been made to import barged water from Suriname. The minister conceded that this was common practice worldwide, but insisted, “No such decision had been taken.”

According to Estwick, “…this is not an unusual event. Water is barged island to island in the Bahamas and water was barged to Antigua during their drought period. (It) has happened all around the world.”

And Dr Mwansa said that while the BWA was not in the process of importing any water to Barbados, it was looking at the possibility of using barged water to help with the island’s current water woes.

The Minister of Natural Resources in Suriname Regilio Dodson, who was also at the CWWA conference, told reporters the role of his government was simply to facilitate government-to-government arrangements, following which AR could go ahead with the supply arrangements with either state or private entities.

While we await to see the results on both sides barging fresh water from the rivers in Suriname to the Caribbean islands might just be what is needed and the start of a viable ‘old’ trade becoming a ‘new’ trade in this part of the world.