For City residents, Princess Margaret Drive has long been the "drive out" spot, where drivers can cruise on a Sunday or any ol' day. But right now, it's in a state and that's because there are plans underway to pave the whole thing. That means BWSL has had to trench up all that area from Nazarene High School to A Street. And that's only phases one and two! Phase three will take the trench work right up to the Hour Bar.
But BWSL is on an accelerated timeline and they hope to finish by mid March. Today, we met CEO Alvan Haynes in front of SJC's Landivar Compound where he explained to us what the plan for Princess Margaret Drive is:
Alvan Haynes - Chief Executive Officer BWSL
"Princess Margaret Drive is really a highway within the city. We have major water mains and sewer mains in here. So, what we've done, is that we're replacing the older water mains with brand new, large mains that are forecasted to handle the requirements into the future. But, it means that we've got to leave the existing system in place, put the new mains, test them thoroughly, and then do new service connections to all the customers, whilst leaving them with water as we work. So, it's a back and forth inconvenience because we've got to come back 2-3 times to do various things. We estimate that from where we are now, we've been working at it for a few weeks. We have another 3 to 5 weeks to complete the entire stretch, right round to BTL park. We've already done the BTL Park, up to Nazarene, coming from the Pallotti roundabout. So, we have 3 crews working on it at the moment, and we'll add 2 more, starting in the next few days, so that we can expedite this section from BTL around to Hour Bar area. Right now, the weather is good, other than the dust, but obviously, it causes inconveniences to traffic. Our work is almost done. The concrete works will obviously have an impact as well, but at the end of the day, what we'll see is much better water, better mains, improved pressure, and obviously better streets."
BWSL has finished with Phase one, which is Nazarene High up to Meighan Avenue and they have handed it over to the City Council for paving.
And as the pipe work on this major road wraps up – it also means that the BWSL has more or less completely re-done the piping on much of what is considered the city's original northside. It's an almost accidental overhaul – because when the mayor struck out on the plan to pave one hundred streets in a year, no one had time to contemplate that it's like a major infrastructure project unto itself.
7 million dollars later, BWSL's boss said it has resulted in unexpected benefits to the utility and to consumers:….
Jules Vasquez
"You all have almost redone the entire - what would be known as the old northside before the city expanded. Explain to me what level of work, and what level of investment has BWS has put into this."
Alvan Haynes - Chief Executive Officer BWSL
"Our estimates for what we've done so far is that the total thing is expected to cost almost 7 million dollars. We have completed some 4 million dollars' worth of work, but it's a tremendous amount of work. We've been at it for a year and a little bit now, I believe. We expect that we'll be at it for at least another 6 to 9 months, but the City will be revamped in terms of water. Pressure will be improved. The lines that are put there are expected to last for the next 15 - 25 years."
Jules Vasquez
"If someone had told you 15 months ago, hear's what we're going to do. We're going to change all of these pipes, pave all of these streets. If there was a clearly outlined plan, you might have balked. But it's been happening incrementally, and before you know it, you've done almost the entire city."
Alvan Haynes
"What happened is essentially, when this came at us, with the works that the Mayor had planned, we and the other utilities, we said there's no way we have money to do this. We have absolutely no way, but we had to turn to our major shareholder, the Government, and the Prime Minister was gratuitous to us. He said, 'We can grant you 3.1 million dollars, initially.' And with that money, we were able to jump-start, get at it create 15 crews, hire basically 150 temporary workers to throw at this project, purchase some new equipments, backhoes, vehicles, and basically it became a major project. I went to a conference in the Caribbean on water in October, and I can boast that our non-revenue water, or water loss in Belize City, has dropped from 40+% to 25% because we've put in new mains, and we've replaced service connections. So now, we're state-of-the-art. We can compete with first-world countries in terms of pressure, service delivery, non-revenue water, and we're more than pleased. We have to say thanks to the Mayor for starting this project."
The next big project for BWSL is Central American Bouelvard – which will be paved from end to end by the Ministry of Works. Meetings to discuss the timeline for that were held yesterday.
