BWSL explains service interruption

Amid the energy woes that consumers have been facing over the past few weeks, yesterday presented a double whammy as Belize Water Services Limited had issues of its own.  Those issues led to a low-pressure water supply right through this evening.  It is a situation that the opposition has now felt it necessary to call for the resignation of the Minister of Public Utilities, Michel Chebat.  Politics aside, however, BWSL has indicated that there was a leak in the main service line which led to another issue during repairs.  The company’s Executive Chairman, Cornelio Acosta, the problem began yesterday with the main line that services Belize City.  

Cornelio Acosta, Executive Chairman, BWSL: “As you may all know we’ve been having some issues as of yesterday about 3pm where we were informed of a leak on our 24 inch main service line that provides water to the entire Belize City. Simultaneously we were doing some tie ins on a 14 inch line which is a redundancy line coming over the new Haulover Bridge to avoid situations like these. So while we were doing this tie in we also had this unfortunate break in our primary main and so we had to finish one of the projects and then move on to the other one. So at about 3pm our crews were mobilized and started immediately working on that area the Lords Bank Cutoff area. From our assessments unfortunately due to the unplanned power fluctuations we’ve had some issues as it relates to power fluctuations and pulse waves being within our distribution lines. This then creates a hammering effect and would generally knock weaker areas of the distribution section. Again it was an unfortunate incident and this created a twenty three foot break within our twenty four inch main line that supplies Belize City.”

Acosta also said that several technical issues made the repairs more difficult, including the presence of other utility infrastructure that crews had to avoid damaging.

Cornelio Acosta, Executive Chairman, BWSL: “The challenges we faced were we have other utilities and other underground works that would fall right above our main and we had to dig about eleven feet down so we had for example the Digi fiber line that runs right above our main so we had to be very careful not to break that fiber because we don’t create additional inconveniences. So thanks to Digi who also had their support personnel out there to ensure that their lines were also protected. We had several cave ins within that area again creating very perilous instances for our employees. I know in the past we’ve had instances where cave-ins have completely covered some of our crew members and we had to dig them out to prevent any disasters. So we had several cave ins at the site and unfortunately while we were working until four this morning we had an instance with a drunk driver completely driving past our manned area there. We had tried to warn him to slow down and he went and knocked down one of our lights that we had in place. Our staff had to hurry move out of the way to avoid being hit. So these are some of the dangers that our staff face when conducting these types of repairs. We’re aware that there are certain areas in the city that do not have water. We’re working on getting that water provided to them. The 24 inch line is the largest pipe that we have and it takes a while for water to pass through and the distribution system and then also get it pressurized to ensure that it reaches to each home. Challenges we’ve been having are particularly on the southside where the demand is significantly greater so we’re right now working on storage management and also working on the pressure itself so we dropped the pressure itself so some of the homes may not be getting some of the services that they should be getting but we’re working on getting that improved and gradually increasing pressure until 6pm where we expect to be all normalized.”

Acosta says that contingencies are being put in place to ensure minimal service interruption if such a problem reoccurs.