The poem that goes Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink was written over two hundred years ago by English Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But the meaning is still fresh with residents on La Isla Bonita who became so outraged about the stagnant quality of water in San Pedro, they complained to the Public Utilities Commission a year ago. The P.U.C. which regulates utility has investigated and this afternoon issued a decision and an order to the Belize Water Services Limited and Consolidated Water Belize Limited in San Pedro. The chairman of the P.U.C., John Avery presented the findings and provisions of the order to secure the supply of potable water on Ambergris Caye.

John Avery, Chairman, P.U.C.

“BWSL has consistently failed to meet the quality standard set by the Ministry of Health for supply of potable water to the public and Ambergris Caye. I would like to clarify that the Ministry of Health sets a number of different standards and BWSL has failed consistently to meet some of the standards not all the standards nuh. And B, where as CWBL has consistently fail to meet the quality standard set by the agreement for supply of treated water to BWS, again a similar thing applies Whereas there is not enough evidence to conclude that any third party is responsible for substandard quality of water supply from CWBL or for any deterioration of such supply. And where as the deterioration of water supply by CWBL to BWS coincided with a substantial reduction in the frequency of the replacement of membranes at the CWBL treatment facility. The commission hereby makes the following order in respect of the said complaint. Now these are actually, the following are actions required to be taken by the parties to ensure that we don’t have a similar problem in the future and to ensure that the public in San Pedro and Ambergris Caye continues to get an adequate supply of potable water. So we go to C, within one hundred and twenty days of the making of this order BWSL and CWBL shall jointly make a submission to the Minister responsible requesting that the area including and immediately surrounding the lagoon next to the CWBL treatment facility which serves as a source of untreated water for the extraction wells for the CWBL water treatment facility be it reserve for a forest reserve or national park as the case may be, pursuant to section twenty seven of the water industry act.”

We’ll have more on this story with comments from the BWS and CWBL in Monday night’s newscast.

Channel 5

Marty, anywhere to get a copy of the lab results? Just curious.

Perhaps it is interesting to know that the north part of Ambergris Caye does not have water from BWSL. At Portofino Beach Resort we make our own water with a (reverse osmosis) desalinator. We test the quality of our water on a regular basis and we are proud that our water is purer than bottled water.

Jan van Noord

What contaminants do you test for jan? Also do you have any idea what the prevailing standards are? ppm level or ppb? any biologicals?

Is the surrounding area mentioned to include Sugar Caye, remember the mayor sold it to D. Mitchell and it was supposed to be the buffer area for the water treatment plant.
http://www.7newsbelize.com/sstory.php?nid=14155

El, I'm confused here, are we talking potable water or groundwater/lagoon waters?

Both potable water and wastewater services offered to San Pedro from the same facility. The ponds where surrounded by mangrove and the design was for these to filter but the mayor sold the land around the ponds to a developer as you read in the link above. The mangrove where cut down and channels dredged up for the subdivision. The DOE approval process was circumvented by the major.
The land around the ponds was for buffer.
No one went to jail, someone made a lot of money and now we're left with the problem.

@#%$*!!! Really? Now there's a classic case of crappin where you drink...

For this and many other decisions I'd like to see the present Mayor charged and in Court, but I don't suppose that will ever happen.

The World Health Organization has a standard of 500 ppm as the limit for dissolved solids. As to biologicals, the water is filtered twice before desalination by a sand filters and the membranes themselves remove bacteria, viruses, biological material, etc.
Jan