I used to feel guilty watering my garden with a hose when so many people worldwide die thirsty, but I also know that while my water might save a life or two, it’ll still be less-than-a-raindrop in the wider oceans needed to make any difference.
Besides, water is cheap in Saint Lucia – at EC $12.21 (just-over US $4.00) for one thousand (1,000) gallons for private households, while the commercial rate is $33.23 per 1,000 gallons.
So, it’s also easy to conclude no business here using water as its base should ever allow itself to have a problem paying its water bill.
Which takes us to an interesting video making-the-rounds online about an exchange between someone associated with a growing car-washing business and another complaining the small business is depriving him (and the community) from accessing water from a roadside public standpipe and a public bath-toilet-and-laundry facility also using the same pipeline.
The complainant voiced, recorded and posted a community grievance that’s existed for some time, but was never publicly expressed.
There was no verbal exchange, as the accused maintained a deafening silence.
But the language and audio-visual effects left some harbouring hopes the brave invisible complainant would be seen more as a fearless voice of the voiceless than someone out to prevent a small business from growing.
Born and raised at Hospital Road in Castries, I grew up witnessing the politics and interesting social intricacies of daily fetching water by bucket from that pipe, women and children taking lines and patiently awaiting their turn while topics ranged from the theatre of neighbourly over-the-fence quarrels to minders of other people’s business ‘exposing’ or revealing neighbours’ long-held secrets.
That public standpipe and a ‘Freeness’ or ‘Comfort Station’ or ‘Public Facility’ on the other side of the road were constructed over-70 years ago to cater for the poor majority – and while the ‘Freeness’ has today been transformed into a multipurpose Community Centre, the two still provide water for the waterless.
Granted, most homes today do have piped water, there are still many without, where householders daily depend on such public standpipes for bath, toilet and laundry purposes, instead of opting for illegal connections.
Even those at homes with water also occasionally use the public standpipes or facilities when absolutely necessary, like when disconnected, or when the system is temporarily shut-down for emergency repairs.
But the problem in this case is that an ever-growing profitable small business is being accused of taking water freely from the public standpipe and the community centre, to wash cars in the city.
The registered van used for the business arrives (almost daily) with a 500-gallon tank to be filled with a hose, a time-consuming exercise that persons in quick need of mere buckets find insensitive – if not unfair.
Naturally, the young men involved have progressed commendably from using buckets of water fetched from a distance, to a self-reliant and mobile enterprise, daily washing cars for appreciative and supportive public service clients in government buildings, including lawyers and judges, doctors, etc.
However, business is about investment and just as the car-washers always have to buy soap, rags, car wax, tire shine and the other necessary implements of their trade, so too should they be willing, as required by the laws of business, to invest in their raw materials – in this case, water.
Basic arithmetic allows us to consider that if the cost of a basic car wash (inside and out) is $30 (at a minimum) and if the enterprise involved washes at least ten (10) cars per day, the sum total earned each day allows for more-than-enough to pay for two (2) 500-gallon tanks of water (at approximately $16.50 each), per day.
Further, if (at above numbers and rates) the small business investor company wisely decides to put aside just $30 per day – the cost of one car wash – for paying for water, at the end of the month they would have enough saved for (at least) 21 of their 500-gallon drums.
Or, better-still (and best-of-all), if they simply get a legal commercial connection from WASCO and pay (at least) $360 per month, they would secure over-ten-thousand (10,000) gallons – and never, ever run out of water.
But, from what persons in the community aware of the long-running dispute are saying, it appears the accused are also possibly being misled or misinformed, by some “big people”, including “top-class lawyers”, who’ve been allegedly telling them they have as-much right of access to the roadside standpipe and use of its free water, because it’s “a public standpipe” and “not only for persons from the community.”
If any of that’s true, it boggles non-learned minds wondering how it can be right for a registered business or private company to make it a business of taking water freely from public standpipes, for profit-making (commercial) reasons.
The accused are also being accused of removing and replacing the pipe-head attached by the water company WASCO, to facilitate use of their own private business hose.
Besides, the Castries municipality (Town Board and Castries City Council) pays WASCO for the ‘free’ public water being extracted and freely bused away by other citizens, for profit-making business.
The video optics suggest the accuser and the accused are known to each other – and the community.
However, the national ‘ro-ro’ mentality has unfortunately led too-many to be more-interested in the tone and content of the exchange than the wider implications for all who use the one public standpipe and community’s bath, toilet and laundry facility.
But, very-much-aware that this problem is known to many who can intervene to ensure a win-win situation for all involved without any negative ripple-effects, many in-the-know at Hospital Road also wonder why this matter appears to be treated like water freely-flowing under a bridge – which, it’s crystal-clear, it isn’t.
The issues here go beyond the boundary of ordinary discussion, but also provide a ready opportunity for quiet and effective remedial interventions.