Residents of two northern Barbados communities, Checker Hall and Six Men’s in the parish of St. Lucy, are finally seeing tangible improvements to their drinking water quality and supply pressure after months of complaints about discolored, low-flow water. However, long-running grievances over dangerously deteriorated roads leading to the nearby settlement of Pie Corner continue to go unresolved, leaving local motorists and pedestrians at constant risk.
The progress on water services follows a site visit to the Barbados Water Authority (BWA)’s Alleynedale treatment facility last week, where agency officials met with community representatives to address ongoing concerns. At that meeting, BWA leadership confirmed that the tap water that had been turning brown for local households still meets all World Health Organization (WHO) safety standards for drinking, even when discolored. BWA Water Resources Manager Alex Ifill explained that the authority has rolled out a dual strategy to target the discoloration issue, and that the situation has improved dramatically across the district since interventions began.
When Barbados TODAY reporters visited Checker Hall this week, many local residents confirmed the noticeable upgrades to their water service. Long-time resident Valerie Husbands said the change has transformed daily life for her household. “You see a little improvement, but some days, for a few hours sometimes, it may come a little brown, but not like before,” Husbands explained. “It’s good now because we’re getting plenty of water right now. I can wash clothes now. We couldn’t wash clothes before. The last two months right here it come clear so we can wash.”
Fellow resident Michael Husbands echoed that positive assessment, noting that water is now consistently clear and supply pressure has returned to a usable level after years of low pressure. “Some days it’d be a little off…like with the smell a little. I ain’t got no filter or anything and it’s clear,” he said. “The pressure is pretty good too, because before the water pressure was real low, you know, and the quality of the water was like brown. There’s one or two areas that I still hear people complain. That’s a little minority though.”
Despite this widespread progress on water services, the unresolved state of the roads leading into Pie Corner has continued to frustrate local resident Roger Feliciano, who says the dangerous conditions pose a daily threat. While Feliciano acknowledged the incremental improvements to water service, noting occasional minor discoloration that residents have learned to adapt to, he emphasized that the road crisis demands urgent government action. “However, the roads are awful. The roads are awful straight up to Pie Corner,” Feliciano said.
He explained that the dangerous conditions were created months ago, when crews from the Ministry of Transport and Works (MTW) excavated sections of the roadway for infrastructure work, but never completed repairs or refilled the excavated trenches. The unmarked pits create a major hazard for drivers, who often do not see the hazard until it is too late to avoid it. “What I find is that MTW men dug out about five to six inches of the road straight across the road, they don’t put the cones to show you that they dug out anything, and they have not refilled them or anything like it… didn’t patch them or anything like it,” Feliciano said. “Sometimes you are driving in and you forget and [drop] into a hole. The roads in Pie Corner are terrible.”