 The first phase of the John Compton Dam project saw the removal of the sediments around the dam wall to clear the lower abstraction port with the overall aim of increasing the plant's water reserve capacity. The John Compton Dam had accumulated over 1.7 million cubic meters of silt over the years, displacing over 400 million gallons of water. According to the head of the project management unit at Wasco, Gordon Wyck, a large share of the silt can be credited to the passage of devastating hurricanes and tropical storms, including Hurricane Thomas in 2010 and Tropical Storm Debbie in 1994. Our dressing, therefore, took place from about October of last year till about February of this year where we were able to remove about 85,000 cubic meters of sediment from the reservoir itself so that reservoir immediately has more capacity and it allowed us to clear that lower port completely so that lower port is now available for use. So along with this, of course, is that we had to take the sediment from here and place it at what is known as the sediment disposal area. That area, so that the sediment is now there, that area was completed in January of this year and now accommodates the sediment we have removed. So the project in its initial phases is now fully complete with the successful removal of sediment clearing the lower port and the building of the sediment disposal area. Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Water and Sewage Company, Wasco, Francis Denbo, explains that there is still a large amount of sediment to be removed which may take up to approximately 10 years. Wasco's immediate goal, however, is to extract an additional 300,000 cubic meters of sediment. And to illustrate the amount of silt, it's the equivalent of roughly 50 football fields, each football field filled with 20 feet of silt. So that's a tremendous amount of silt that has to be desilted or extracted from the dam to go into the sediment disposal area and there is no way that this could be done within one year or two years. It's a long process, it's a long process between one year to ultimately 10 years, 8 to 10 years to do that process. And why? In any one year you could only extract roughly 200,000 cubic meters of silt and you could only do that during the rainy season. You cannot extract silt from the dam during the dry season or during the drought. Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Natural Resources and Cooperatives, Honourable Ezekiel Joseph, expressed his satisfaction with the work done by the Wasco team and contractors, saying that the milestones achieved thus far on this initiative ties into the broader program agenda for development within the sector. I mean it was very challenging and like we just said a while ago we have no control over the weather and when we gave a contract to do the construction of a sediment disposal area we targeted to coincide with the dry season. Unfortunately that year it was not a traditional dry season, it was a rainy season and with the contractor unfortunately lost almost one year of long time as it pertains to the impact of the rain that affected the drought. But I must say it's something new to us in the region and we have learned from the experience and we're able to accomplish it because they have been talked from since Thomas 2010 as far as regaining the John Compton Dam. The second phase of the John Compton Dam Dissulting project is expected to commence in approximately three months. From the communications unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, I am Anisia Antoine reporting.