The following comment posted by BU commenter Are-we-there-yet in response to another commenter Crusoe.
Crusoe;
Yuh certain dat there is now a prohibition on FILLING tanks in excess of 400 litres (roughly 100 gallons) from the mains?
How are they going to enforce that?
Ensure that every household with a larger capacity tank install some type of system that would shut off when the water level reaches a height equivalent to a volume of 400 litres?
Are such systems available for existing larger capacity tanks or will they rely on the householders to shut off the water manually when it reaches the prescribed level?
If so how will they ensure that householders are obeying the drought restriction regulations? Use the Police? Use the SSA officers? Use Min of Health personnel? Use BWA personnel?
Do they know all of the houses that have tanks with greater capacity than 400 litres?
Will they ask householders with existing larger tanks (most people, as 450 gallon tanks seem to be the most popular ones) to replace them with 100 gallon tanks?
Will the prohibition be all over the Island? Or will those areas in St Thomas, St Andrew, etc. which only get intermittent supply of water from the mains be allowed to pump more than the 400 litres of water while the rest of the island will be subject to the prohibition?
In such areas a more relevant measure might be limiting the amount of water to be supplied by tanker to households with tanks but without water to 400 litres at any one time to ensure that such water is provided to everyone in an even handed manner.
The rationing of water is a good thing and all Barbadians should play their part and one can understand the need to limit the water being held in tanks. But what appears to be being mandated here needs a lot of refinement to be workable and enforceable in the short term but could be developed to be part of a workable long term strategy where all households would be allowed to fill potable water tanks to a limit of x litres per household member. Thus a 2 member household might have a limit of x litres and a 4 member household one of 2x litres.
I wonder if the current strategy has taken into consideration the relatively high water use by washing machines and water toilets as well as showers and if the given 400 litre figure takes these into account?
Something seems awry in what has been reported so far. Perhaps tomorrow’s paper might give some better indication of what is in store for us.
The blogmaster invites you to join and add value to the discussion.