CASTRIES – The Government of Saint Lucia, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and the Water and Sewerage Company (WASCo) Inc., are scheduled to launch the John Compton Dam Rehabilitation Project today.
The dam was built with a reservoir design capacity of three million cubic meters of water or 660 000 million gallons of water. However, following Hurricane Tomas in 2010, the dam’s capacity was compromised by 1.1 million cubic meters of silt. The 2013 Christmas Eve trough worsened the situation, bringing the silt levels to 1.5 million cubic meters.
The objective of the project is to restore the reservoir to its original capacity.
At present the John Compton Dam Rehabilitation Project is at the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage, with a December 16 deadline. The project will involve primarily the dredging of sediments from the reservoir and proper disposal at an engineered site, water augmentation, infrastructural rehabilitation, and water shed restoration and management.
Additionally, the government will launch the Vieux Fort Water Supply Redevelopment Project on Wednesday.
That project involves the construction of a new intake, the rehabilitation of an existing intake, the construction of a new, fully-equipped conventional water treatment plant, pump stations, transmission mainlines and treated water storage tanks. The project is at the stage of recruiting a project manager for the John Compton Dam Rehabilitation Project.
Both projects are earmarked to be underway by the first quarter of 2016. (PR)
