The Caribbean’s Water and Sewerage Association (CAWASA) has pledged to keep its head above water in 2024, to continue achieving its lofty mission of helping prevent Caribbean water utilities from drowning or dying from thirst as the region continues reaping its share of the world’s widening water woes.
Planet Earth continues facing the hottest months on record – April 2024 being the 10th consecutive worst since records began centuries ago — parching soils through long droughts, people dying of thirst or being baked to death by sweltering heatwaves and use of water as a weapon of war — while the Caribbean grapples with saving water and distributing it to households without, without national utilities drowning in debt.
Connecting Water Utilities.
CAWASA is the Caribbean-wide industry body connecting national water industries, representing 12 publicly-owned utilities, with at least five private sector affiliates providing (between them) providing services to over-400,000 Caribbean consumers.
It’s charter says it also facilitates ‘knowledge-sharing, networking and cooperation in the urban water industry through activities focusing on core areas as: Staff Training and Development, Certification, Networking and Institutional Strengthening,’ as well as Lobbying Governments and Engaging in research and documentation.
Last month (April 18), CAWASA’s 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) reviewed 2023 and planned for 2024 and 2025, including how best to improve and expand services of (public and private) Caribbean utilities.
Headquartered in Saint Lucia, the regional body provides support for utilities and other affiliate members, ranging from organizing conferences to facilitating practical exchanges of experiences and promoting cooperation between regional water entities and their European and American partners.
Crowning Achievements
Presenting the report, CAWASA outgoing President and General Manager of the National Water and Sewerage Authority (NAWASA) Christopher Husbands and CAWASA Executive Director Ignatius Jean described the association’s “crowning achievement last year” as its implementation of the GEF CReW+ Project entitled: ‘Water and Wastewater Capacity Building Programme in the Caribbean’.
That program was implemented in collaboration with Operators Without Borders (OWB) in Barbados, Belize, Grenada and Saint Lucia.
However, other successful 2023 CAWASA events highlighted included: hosting its 7th Water Operators’ Conference in Barbados (June 28-30) and the Water Professionals International (WPI) Pinning Ceremony for eight water operators who qualified with the ‘Professional Operator’ designation.
The President and Executive Director said such events, “highlight the strength of the association’s certification, training and knowledge-sharing services.”
In addition, they also said, CAWASA’s “virtual webinars on a wide range of subjects” — and other events — “underscore the association’s commitment to keeping members informed and engaged.”
During 2023, CAWASA also renewed its connections with regional and international partners ‘towards a path for a Resilient and Climate-Smart Future, aligned to the Regional Strategic Action Plan for Governance and Building Resilience in the Water Sector in the Caribbean (RSAP) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal Number 6 (SDG-6).’
CAWASA also participated in several regional and international events in the preceding year, including: the 5th Global Water Operators Congress organized by the Global Water Operators Alliance (GWOPA) held in Bonn, the CIMH-NOAA ‘Conference on Climate Services to Support Adaptation and Resilience in the Caribbean’ (held in Barbados); USAID’s ‘Water is Life’ Conference (also in Barbados) and the annual Water Professionals International (WPI) conference in Florida.
CAWASA also played a leading role in the promotion and implementation of the Caribbean Water Utilities Insurance Component Special Portfolio (CWUIC SP) and facilitated Caribbean participation in the CARIBSAN Pilot Project in Wastewater Treatment in Cuba, Dominica and Saint Lucia, in collaboration with the Water Offices (ODEs) of Martinque and Guadeloupe and their European Union (EU) and French counterparts.
“In the light of the challenges of inter-island travel,” the President and Executive Director noted, CAWASA “has had to be creative with service delivery” to its members.
With the development of “a range of new digital content” — particularly its ‘Wednesday Webinar Series’ and various social media platforms – members “have also embraced the various avenues to connect, share and inspire positive change.”
New Board, Old Challenges
Meanwhile, a new Board of Directors was elected to serve a three-year period, from 2024 to 2027:
The new President is Bernard Ettinoffe, General Manager of the Dominica Water and Sewerage Company (DOWASCO); Vice President is Winsbert Quow, General Manager of the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) of St Vincent & The Grenadines; Ian Lewis, Water Services Manager of the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) was re-elected Secretary; and the new Treasurer is Zilta George-Leslie, CEO of Saint Lucia’s Water and Sewerage Company (WASCO).
The new board also includes Immediate Past President Terrence Smith (Acting General Manager of Grenada’s National Water and Sewerage Authority (NAWASA) and Ignatius Jean, Executive Director, Ex-Officio Director.
But the new leadership takes office facing more-than just the usual challenges, as territories it serves continue to experience worsening accelerated and deepening negative effects of Climate Change and continuing traditional neglect of their financial worries and woes.
High temperatures, reduced rainfall and heatwaves everywhere have resulted in increased water scarcity in the Caribbean, as well as floods, landslides and earthquakes, together exacerbating the region’s water woes.
But, small-island developing nations (like the majority in the Eastern Caribbean) are forced to have to beg for materialization and delivery of promises of Loss and Damage assistance from those responsible and are instead left unable to fix the collateral damage, including to age-old water infrastructure.
CAWASA’s 2024 AGM also identified common challenges while sharing unique experiences of member-utilities to build resilience to Climate Change in the water sector, such as: the NAWASA G-CReWS Project in Grenada and the 3RCReWS (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) For Climate Resilience Wastewater Systems In Barbados.
CAWASA also pledges to continue promoting partnerships among water utilities and international partners to combat the region’s challenges of water loss reduction, as Non-Revenue Water in the Caribbean averages over 50 percent annually, owing to factors such as ageing infrastructure, leakages from transmission-and-distribution mains, water theft, etc.
CAWASA is promoting and recommending Public Consultation Practices, better technical leak-detection facilities (including mapping and remote monitoring), diversification of water sources and alternative water harvesting (including rainwater).
But they also need long-term financial planning and greater investment in infrastructure to float above the water-mark – like for urgent repairs to five-decades-old mains badly-built in much-earlier times and now bursting underground, along highways and in communities, from accumulated pressure.
Wanting and Waning
CAWASA has developed ‘Strategic Partnerships’ with global and regional institutions such as: the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), World Bank, USAID, Water Professionals International (WPI), Operators Without Borders (OWB), UNICEF, Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association (CWWA), Caribbean Desalination Association (CaribDA), Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and the Water Office of Martinique (ODE), among others.
But in all cases, even where water utilities operate profitably, state support tends to be more wanting and waning than available to support the work of water operators, who only tend to get recognized on World Water days, but are daily charged with the responsibility to deliver fresh water to every person and home possible.
CAWASA’s public member-entities differ in their levels of access to cash and/or government subsidies and others not-fully-privatized have to depend on usually-low water rate charges, dwarfed by the costs of bottled-water production, already dominated by the private utilities.
But most can’t meet their expenses with current rates, resulting in their inability to fix old pipes.
Financing the replacement of ageing infrastructure is beyond the capacity of most utilities. In one case, it cost a utility over US $250 million to replace pipelines in one city.
Loss of possible earnings from Non-Revenue Water and wastage from deliberate vandalism also drown efforts by affected utilities depending on uncertain subsidies and constrained by outdated regulations, usually also having to make more-than-convincing cases to convince normally-stubborn public utility regulators.
In most cases, rates last increased were not-near-enough and population expansion and service delivery needs have been compounded by unpredictable factors, ranging from vandalism and illegal connections to an expanding tourism industry with more cruise ships to also be watered.
Bottled Challenges
Public utilities operating on private sector lines have to sell water cheap in markets already controlled by bottled-water companies.
One OECS island sells 1,000 gallons of treated water for EC $12.00 (less than US $5.00), while the smallest plastic bottle of purified water (410 mL or 13.9 fl. oz) is sold at almost US $2.00.
Besides, in many cases, the private manufacturers purchase the raw water from national public utilities not mandated to or prohibited from producing and selling bottled water.
‘Water for All’
It’s the duty of every government, in keeping with United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal Number 6 (SDG-6) to deliver ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’ for all everywhere — and to treat it as ‘a source of life and a human right’ by striving to make it ‘affordable’.
But public water is still largely treated as a domestic necessity, a public need and health requirement that everyone demands, but not-all are prepared to pay the real costs for, automatically resisting rate-increase requests or advocating tying them to impossible demands.
The Caribbean’s water problems are cyclical and sustained, every nation requiring an unaffordable but absolutely necessary generational upgrade of plants, equipment and infrastructure.
Caribbean agriculture also continues to suffer from drought and related earthly illnesses — now more and worse than ever — just as CARICOM heads into the final year of its pledge to lower its regional Food Import Bill by 25% by the end of 2025.
But never mind the revolving-door challenges, CAWASA has pledged to remain committed to fruitfully embracing the opportunities brought with each, while annually reviewing, assessing and previewing the pace and progress of its many programs at national, regional and international levels – and planning ahead today, for tomorrow and beyond.