NWC disgrace

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Sandwiched between the back gate of the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech, Ja) which leads on to Gordon Town Road, St Andrew, and the parallel trajectory that ends by the Texaco Gas Station by Chandos Place, is a National Water Commission (NWC) facility.

This water channel is the product of a 1752 Private law and its 1757 amendment which resulted in Hope Estate having ‘four-ninths of the water rights, and Papine and Mona sharing the remaining five-ninths’ (see Jamaican Estates: Water Case Objecting to an Act of Assembly of Jamaica Passed in November 1752, STB West Indies, Jamaica Water Rights Case, November 1752, Box No.10. in Veront Satchell’s Hope Transformed: A Historical Sketch of the Hope Landscape, St. Andrew, Jamaica, 1660-1960).

For several months, the physical state of the facility has worsened. The gate is now compromised and open to all and sundry. You won’t get very far as your view will be blocked by the unapologetic tour guides in the form of massive forest overgrowth accompanied by the overpowering stench of faeces and the ever-increasing piles of garbage.

It is possible there is enough blame to go around. It is unclear if the Ministry of Health and the Kingston & St Andrew Municipal Corporation can do something about this. However, what is not in dispute is that the buck stops with the National Water Commission.

NWC, please address the unsanitary environment in which public water is being transmitted.

JOAN FRANCIS