Remember two years ago when Belize City residents were raging against low water pressure and water cutouts?
For most, those memories are long gone, ever since BWSL rectified the problems at the Double Run water plant. But there are areas in the country where water problems persist. In San Jose Succotz residents had grown accustomed to running water, if only for a couple of hours a day, but now find themselves totally without it.
If access to water is a right, Alfonso Noble found out how very wrong things have gone.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
Most of us expect when we go home, and turn on our faucet we will have running water. And while by and large that is so - for some residents of San Jose Succotz here in the Cayo District - when they turn on their faucet - they get nothing except for a monthly bill.
Wilson Pat, Succotz Villager
"Over the past two months, we haven't gotten one drop of water in the whole of this vicinity behind the school area."
Olga Panti, Succotz Villager,
"For years we have been having problems not just for two months. Before in the night around 11 pm to 1 am we would have water and then in the day there is no water and this is going for the 8 years since we have been here. And now for the past three months we don't have water at all in the day or night."
Wilson Pat,
"Before we used to have problems but in the early morning we would get up around 1 or 2 o'clock to fill our buckets to last us for the rest of the day but now not even one drop of water is coming out. Something is wrong somewhere."
But until that "somewhere" is figured out, residents are left to tackle the problem of not having potable water. Pat says this situation has him and many others having to fetch water from the river that is downhill from where they live.
Wilson Pat,
"What we try to do to assist my basic needs is to go to the to river fill my bucket and come home and put it in my vat. That is the only thing we can do to try to get water in the house."
"I was used to getting the portable drinking water at home even though I was getting up late at night but now I come home from work tired and I have to rent a vehicle or pay somebody to go to the river to get water for me."
Anthony Obando, Succotz Villager
"Some of us get water, if we have a transport, we can get it but a lot of people don't have transport so a lot of people are suffering-we are like in a desert."
Olga Panti,
"I still get a bill and a very high bill for more than 30 dollars a month but then I do get water from a water pump in a neighborhood where if we get a little pressure we put on the pump and that is how we get water."
That goodwill and ingenuity does not go without a price. Panti says she's already blown a pump and has recently had to install a new one. But while she can afford to do so there are those who can't. Even the monthly flat rate bill of $7.50 is too much especially when no water is in the pipes.
Wilson Pat,
"All of them are closing off their pipes because they are not getting nothing out of it and they still have to pay. So what is the use of paying a bill and you have no water. So what we are doing is turning off our pipes and when we somebody fixes the pipes we will pay the reconnection fee and start to pay the bill. So as of now everyone is turning off their meters."
Olga Panti,
"We are tired of paying bills and no one water is coming in. For example we pay $7.50 and the bill shows that we got no water and the company hasn't been doing anything."
Wilson Pat,
"We need water, water is the basic need of Succotz. At least during the night we used to get it so housewives would have it and our kids used to drink potable water but right now we have nothing."
Anthony Obando,
"We need them to provide us with water because we need water. We are really suffering."
We today contacted BWSL executives who told us that they'd be looking into the matter.