Crooked Tree gets first rudimentary water system…
If all goes according to plan, by next April the picturesque village of Crooked Tree along the Northern Highway, which is recorded as the oldest settlement, will at last be catching up and will benefit from a new water system. Construction was launched today after funding of more than one point four million dollars was secured from the Social Investment Fund, the government and the community. News Five’s Marion Ali was in Crooked Tree for the event.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Twelve years after initial efforts were made to introduce a new rudimentary water system, ground was officially broken today. Because of the scope of the project, accessing funding for the one million-dollar plus investment project has been the major hiccup.
Ernest Banner, Rural Development Coordinator
“We deal with the wells so we come in, we drill the well the well, we put that in place and then we have to seek finance. Finance has been the hindrance to the project but now they have identified funds and the project will go on.”
Yvonne Hyde, Nat’l Authorising Officer, EU
“Under the Belize Rural Development Programme, there is an allocation or part of the project funds are to do community activities like this one here; basically, to enhance the productivity of villages and communities and to ensure that people have basic human needs. The ultimate goal is to lift them out of poverty. Water supply is considered to be one of the most important human needs and it also helps us fulfill our commitments under the Millennium development goals.”
But meeting these goals has been a challenge, especially when the dry season steps in.
Linda Codd, Resident, Crooked Tree
“Ih wah be wah welcome project.”
Marion Ali
“Because right now weh you di use?”
Linda Codd
“I di use water from the vat because I noh have no well.”
Marion Ali
“You wah hook up to di system?”
Linda Codd
“Mhmm, cause wen no water, when dry season den I noh have no water. I have to go get water from di government well.”
Marion Ali
“I noticed you have two vats. If yoh store wata inna den yah, when dry season dehn still go dry?”
Linda Codd
“Dis one yah goh dry but I just put up dah one deh. I just put dat up yesterday and dat noh full yet.”
George Guest, Chairman, Crooked Tree Village
“The problem is that every year we get a dry season and it gets longer and longer. There’s nine hundred and fifteen people in Crooked Tree at this time and the water system will be serving two hundred and forty-five homes hopefully next year some time, maybe March. Thanks to God they get rain in their vats and in the well noh. Before the well use to run dry and the vats used to run dry so we had to rely on the Ministry of Works and B.W.S. to deliver on water or they have to go and buy.”
Marion Ali
“The lagoon didn’t play a role?”
George Guest
“No, the lagoon can’t play no role. That’s dirty filthy water and not even the horse bathe in there no more.”
And contamination has been a growing problem for the residents who have had to drill their own wells until the new system comes on stream.
Marion Ali
“I understand there was some health issues when the private wells were tested?”
Edmund Castro, Area Rep., Belize Rural North
“Yes, out of sixty wells that have been tested in the past, about twelve or fourteen of them had been contaminated. So it is before we get into any problem with infectious diseases and so on from health issues, so we know that it’s urgent for Crooked Tree.”
Ernest Banner
“After we drill the well, the Ministry of Health comes in and they do their tests for fecal matter content and then it is connected to the system.”
The system will entail several months of work and when completed, is expected to supply the village’s almost two hundred and fifty families.
Roger Bradley, Technical Officer, Bze/Cayo, SIF
“The total cost of the project is one point five million dollars of which the Social Investment Fund is putting—the Social Investment Fund, through a grant from the European and counterpart government funding is putting one point three million dollars and the Crooked Tree community will be putting two hundred thousand dollars approximately in the form of trenching during the piping. There will be a fee of two dollars a foot but two dollars is considered as community contribution.”
Marion Ali
“The system will be located where?”
Roger Bradley
“Actually, this is the well site. There will be a pump house that will be constructed here that will be pumping water from this well into an elevated tank which is in another part of the village which is the highest point. It will be a twenty thousand gallon tank and this will be gravity fed through sixty-thousand feet of transmission and distribution lines; meaning that the distribution lines run along the main road and the transmission lines run from this well site to the tank.”
The tank is expected to pump twenty-thousand gallons of water each day to the residents. At month’s end, villagers will pay a fee of ten dollars for the service. Reporting for News Five, Marion Ali.
