Sophisticated metering system being installed to better monitor BVI’s water usage
Government is putting measures in place to better account for water usage and better protection against major losses or wastage of the utility.
This is being done through the installation of a sophisticated metering system on the Carrot Bay and Zion Hill reservoirs, which are to undergo a $2.5 million restoration and upgrade.
Speaking at the contract signing for the project on Thursday, Minister of Works & Utilities Kye Rymer said, “this is also being done to help the Water & Sewerage Department to better understand their non-revenue losses”.
“Several bulk water meters, pressure gauges, pressure reduction valves will be placed in strategic points to assess a monitoring system that will be activated at the end of the construction period,” Rymer explained.
Up to 50% of non-revenue water
While noting that non-revenue losses could represent a country losing up to half of its water supply in some cases, the minister said he believes the new monitoring system will better allow authorities to identify any gaps that cause water loss at the aforementioned reservoirs.
“This is water that is lost through leaks, theft or metering inaccuracies [and] we know that this adds up,” Rymer said. “In most Caribbean countries, the policymakers usually quote that 50 percent of non-revenue water means that half of what we produce is lost.”
“So by obtaining the data, it can be used to quantify the different components of losses in the system, and we can understand how much, where, and why water is lost,” he added.
250 gallons wasted per minute
Just last December, the minister said investigations into the water problems in Sea Cow’s Bay revealed that more than 250 gallons of water per minute was leaking in that community.
The leaks have since been identified and repaired, according to Minister Rymer.
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I see a problem with this already. “ SOPHISTICATED “, who’s going to monitor & maintain it ?
Agree, and check all them ‘secret pipes’ connected to reservoirs stealing water…
City water rolling down Great Mountain every day for a year now. Nobody can fix that? Aside from the water wasted there is the damage to the road surface that PW will have to repair.
this is one of the biggest problems that on one hand, continues to go unaddressed because it keeps happening, and on the other hand, it is addressed the wrong way because of inadequate pipes and systems being used to solve the problem. the size pipes I see being utilized has got to be one of the biggest reasons for a lot of these infrastructural failures with W & S matters.
Please bring the W&S leak repair crew back to the Sea Cows Bay district to repair ALL the water leaks! The only leaks that have been repaired are those near the flat main roads while most of the leaks are up in the hills near driveways, unpaved roads, etc.
All through sea cows bay is still leaking water.The old pipes need to to dip up and replaced before considering meters.sea cows dont have water on constant bases and what help meters have to do with water in the district. We need constant water supply and then the meters.Sir.
Indeed, Water and Sewage Dept. needs better accounting for water distribution. For example, if there is 62M gallons output from its water production plant for a month and it bills for 40M gal, assigns 5M for fire flow, and there is 10M gal in storage for an accounted for total of 55M gal, it should and must investigate where the missing 7M went. Was the missing 7M gal due leakages, theft……etc.
Finding out where the missing water went will enable it to take effective and timely action. Many locales are using automatic meter reading (AMR). With AMR, water usage can be measured in real time. The department has a dashboard to view who is using water and how much at any time. The downside forAMR is that it may displaces meter readers but it eliminates estimating meter reading and provides timely meter reading.
Crafty bvilanders continue to steal from them selves for their grand/great children to pay
it got a buss pipe sage mountain riber running every thursday, fix it