Thursday, October 22, 2009

How Much For A New Reservoir?

Since yesterday the CWA has started implementing water cuts on the back of the same old excuses. These cuts are a very good indicator of the average level of management of our country. See, our population was controlled ages back, we sit next to one of the rainiest spots on earth (Reunion Island) and we're a rich country so how difficult is it to make sure that water stoppages become history for all of us?

It definitely can't be as difficult as the water supply problems of Singapore which imports more than half of the stuff from Malaysia and yet it's one of the most competitive places in the world year after year. They've managed this one with NEWater (recycling waste water), desalination and increasing the water catchment area. That sounds like uber problem-solvers at work, doesn't it?

And how does going to ocean depths to run our air-con sound? Un plaisir, sans doute...
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5 comments:

  1. Tam Tam22 October, 2009 20:43

    "Average", you must have been on a high when you wrote that! I bet you meant world beaters in batte-batté.

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  2. akagugo03 June, 2010 17:34

    Some people are already implementing concepts formulated under MID fund:
    http://www.lexpress.mu/services/epaper-109390-b-un-hotel-equipe-d-un-systeme-de-climatisation-high-tech-b.html

    But when will this fund actually start implementing projects to justify its raison-d'être?

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  3. akagugo03 June, 2010 17:55

    @ Tam Tam:
    Management by crisis would be more appropriate, right?
    http://www.lexpress.mu/services/epaper-83587-b-coupure-d-eau-creation-d-une-cellule-de-crise-b.html

    Mais saki pli grave, c'est ki près 50% volume ki traité pa ressi vinn dans nou robinet. Soit par normal losses (by world standards, you cannot go below 25% losses in any water distribution network), ou bien plis souvent par vol (piquage illégal, tampering / reversing of flowmeters/compteurs) et mismanagement of the network (improper pressure settings and absence of maintenance on valves eventually leading to breakage and leaks). Donc, théoriquement, si nou ti capave régler ça-bann ti-problèmes la, nou ti pou doubler nou réserves en eau. Dommage, no strong will exists in curtailing losses first. Spending billions in building the Bagatelle Dam is deemed somewhere more glamourous than sending 10 full-time teams of pickups equipped with "expensive" Rs150k apiece leak-detectors and spares for finding and repairing leaks existing pipelines.

    Moreover, since 1995 I heard about a Water Authority which would have merged all authorities dealing with Dodoland's water (Central Water Authority, Wastewater Management Authority, Irrigation Authority, Water Resources Unit, etc), to avert fragmentation of implementation programmes: is that Water Act coming any soon?

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  4. Sanjay Jagatsingh16 November, 2014 22:58

    So after all these years we still haven't solved our water problems...

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  5. akagugo12 June, 2017 21:27

    And 'discovering' one only now...? Come on! The University of Mauritius had already researched this problem (typical of many countries since the late 90's due to encroachment of human activity onto the reserves of water bodies) and proposed quite a nice plan for dealing with it 16 years ago to Irrigation Authority. God knows whas been done since then, and why it's only now that they had to pay a foreigner for a report about things already highlighted to them more than a decade ago...

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