Clarification: Vitens to provide technical support

The Dutch water supply company Vitens Evides will not be carrying out the actual installation of the water pipe from the Fort Bay Harbour to The Bottom and Windwardside and the two filling stations.

Saba Commissioner of Public Works and Finance Bruce Zagers on Tuesday clarified an article that appeared in The Daily Herald on Monday in which it was announced that a water pipe would be installed this year along with two filling stations, one in the Bottom and the other in Windwardside. This will facilitate the distribution by the water trucks to consumers.

Vitens Evides will be providing the technical support on this project for the period of one year, along with a few others.

The agreement that Zagers signed with Vitens Evides CEO Marco Schouten included: a feasibility study of on-island production of bottled water, including options for distribution channels and the outline design of piped distribution of reverse osmosis water to the parking lot cistern in Windwardside. The agreement further entailed an evaluation of options for socialised provision of drinking water to poor families, the review options for the governance of the water distribution system as well as the bottling facility, cost price per cubic metre calculations for the transmission of a main and pumping system, and a price per cubic meter evaluation and pricing mechanism for contract for produced and trucked reverse osmosis water.