 Hello and a warm welcome to another edition of interview. I am Mr. Doc Suri and my guests today are Rupert Lee, who is the project manager for the Water Resources Management Agency, the WRMA. And alongside Rupert is Jason Ernest, who is the acting director of the Water Resources Management Agency, WRMA. Now, why are we here today? Today, what we want to do is to discuss the disaster vulnerability reduction project specifically. And just to say quickly, two important things about this particular project is that, one, it is the biggest financial arrangement between the government of St. Lucia and the World Bank to date. And the second thing about the DBRP is that it is designed to reduce the country's risk to disasters as it pertains to weather-related disasters as we live in an era of climate change. But of course, we are going to be learning a lot about the WRMA, specifically its mandate and so on. So that's where I'm going to begin. Let me start with you, Rupert. When we hear of anything to do with water in St. Lucia, generally the first company or institution that comes to mind happens to be Wasco. But here we have the Water Resources Management Agency, the WRMA. And by its very nomenclature, Water Resources Management, it does indicate that you have a very strong mandate to manage these very important resources in Lucia. So can you speak to, generally, briefly, the mandate of the WRMA? Briefly, it's a mandate and it's suggestive in the actual nomenclature, as you just said. It's to manage water resources. So we're governed by an Act and this Act establishes the WRMA for the purpose of managing water resources in St. Lucia. Now that's a very critical role in the well-being of the country as a whole. It impacts on health and so on when you speak about water resources and managing these resources. That assists us in many ways. You can think about the tourism industry. We cannot have a tourism industry without water. I just mentioned the health of the nation depends on the availability of clean water as well. So water resources plays a critical role in a country's development. So that is why the WRMA was established to manage those resources. Certainly, we had a saying and it's a cliche, perhaps an overused cliche, that water is life, but clearly we know that water is life. I mean for my part, give me a choice between water and electricity. On any day, I will select water. I want the availability of water. But Jason, I did say at the top of the introduction that when you have water, you have WASCO. In fact, that's a correlation. Is there some sort of direct or indirect relationship between the WRMA and WASCO? I will say that yes, there is because the functions that are currently being undertaken by the agency was in fact being done by WASCO before the implementation of the act that created the water resources management agency. So basically, WASCO and WRMA are two peas in a pod because we're both in the interest of managing and protecting the water resources of St. Lucia. And we are responsible for the abstraction of the water resource. And most of the water supply comes from surface water in St. Lucia. And this is where WASCO primarily abstracts their water. So we're responsible for protecting what happens in our watersheds. So WRMA and WASCO have a critical role because we do monitoring and WASCO also do their own monitoring of the resource. And based on what is seen in the watersheds that may affect the quality and quantity, then we'll use it with each other to see how best we can ameliorate the situation. Now we have a long discussion that has been ongoing for a very long time in terms of how we manage water in the country. And perhaps globally as well, but we were sick to St. Lucia, this is where we live. And there may be a sort of lack of appreciation for water, even compared to electricity. Can you pull from your mind, Rupert, a water fact so that people can appreciate what goes on with this very important resource in St. Lucia? A water fact locally would be that, again, when you look at the WRMA, water resources implies exactly that, resources. And when you think about a water resource, Jason just mentioned surface water, but there's groundwater as well that is a resource. And so we are cognizant of all those resources and we are responsible for its management. So a fact is we want to look at watersheds in the country. And we have 37 of those, of which 7 we have looked at as being critical to supplying the water quantities that we need to the nation as a whole. So that's a fact that... 37 watersheds? 37 watersheds, of which 7 we look at 7 of those currently as being critical. That can change with time, but currently we're looking at 7. We focus on 7 of those to manage these resources more closely at this time. 37 watersheds in St. Lucia. Well, we have been hearing that the population has been diminishing to some extent. But are you satisfied, Jason, that the country is well prepared given? And that is the emphasis here, that is going to be the emphasis of our discussion, that we live at a time when the climate is changing and that we expected to have worse droughts than before. Can we go to bed feeling comfortable that our water catchment, our water resource base is sufficient to be able to walk us through any disaster now or in the future? Well, because of our size and location, there are limitations because most of the water that flows through our watersheds actually end up back to the sea. We have one of a problem of storage. So during the year that we would get abundant rainfall, that water just flows to the sea. So wasco only abstracts at the full capacity at that time. So the critical issue is one of storage. So as you mentioned that the demand is expected to grow. Then one of the things that we'd have to do is to find new sources of water, alternate sources of water. And one of the areas that they were looking at is actually in terms of constructing a new reservoir that has been on the table for many years. Well, actually that one in the past they were looking at Tomasi. Somewhere on the Tomasi River. The view photo has also been looked at, but as of now, nothing much has really come of that. We'll stop here for now. We'll take a break. But I want to say to our viewers, there's a lot more information that we're going to be giving you. And when we come back, we're going to have Jason continue what he was saying and then focus on the DVRP and how it is assisting to build water stability in the country. The world's climate is changing and that affects all of us. Storms are becoming increasingly intense. Periods of intense drought and heavy rain stress farm animals and destroy our crops. Higher average ocean temperatures kill our coral reefs and change the migratory patterns of fish. St. Lucia contributes only 0.0015% of global greenhouse gas emissions but is doing its part along with countries around the world to reduce the emissions that are warming our world and changing our climate. These efforts are called mitigation. But decades of emissions have already changed the climate and the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today will increase average global temperatures even more. We need to adapt. That is, do everything we can to prepare for and respond to the actual and expected negative effects of climate change and everyone has a role to play. We need to protect our crops, build homes that withstand storms and keep our drains and waterways free of garbage to help us recover or bounce back from climatic events. Learn more about the Government of St. Lucia's National Adaptation Plan and the steps you can take to protect yourself and your fellow St. Lucia's. A very warm welcome back and thank you for staying with us. We are speaking with Rupert Lee, who is the project manager for the WRMA and Jason Ernest, who is the acting director of the Water Resources Management Agency, the WRMA. And just before we left, we were speaking to the how do we ensure that we have a steady supply of water before, during and post a disaster. But just before I allow Jason to come in, let me just tell you, give you a fact about the DVRP, that is the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project. I don't know if you know, but did you know that the Denver Infants School was constructed utilizing funds from the DVRP? This is something that if you didn't know, now you know. So back to what you were saying earlier to continue Jason. Yes, so as I mentioned that it's one in terms of the storage of the resource. So this is one of the areas that we're looking to push in terms of conservation. So conservation, not only in terms of in the environment, but also in terms at a household level. So that that resource persons are constantly aware that, you know, the resource has value and that it should be protected. And one of the things that we at WRMA are doing is in terms of looking at WASCO intakes as a baseline, so it's there. How best we can protect it so that the water quality is not affected because the more WASCO has to shift the intakes higher up into the watershed. That means less of the water resource that they would have at particular times of the year. Because in San Lucia we have many tributaries and WASCO have the intakes on tributaries. So the higher up you go, the drainage area you have coming into those areas would be significantly diminished. And that would affect the areas that are being supplied from those intakes. So it's one of protecting what we have now and then seeing what initiatives that we can implement to actually augment our water supply. Yeah, I must say just before you come in, I know you wanted to add something, but I must say from the information that you have so far disseminated that it is clear that the WRMA is undertaking this monitoring in a very thorough way. And clearly you, from what you have said just far, that you're very serious about using just a mundane word of ensuring that the country has a put-able supply of water regardless of whatever circumstances that we are faced with. Yes, Robert? Yeah, I wanted to hasten to add as well. When we look at our mandate again, it's managing water resources. When you think about water resources, the supply of that resource comes from rainfall as well as water intrusion through the sea. So the rainfall is clear and that's what translates into what we call surface water and groundwater in the upper reaches of the watersheds. Water intrusion through saline wedges in the sea also contributes and that's mainly through groundwater. But to expound on what Jason was speaking about to do with one of our mandates, one of our functions is to promote water conservation. So you can look at a water resource, a country's water resource in more than one week. You could focus on conservation as well and when we promote water conservation that assists us retaining what we have as a resource because then you're managing that resource in an efficient way. So if we, to water users, we promote the conservation of water, then that awareness will assist us in maintaining a healthy integrity of that water resource to start with. But also we need to think about management. Now I know when we started you raised the question about our relationship with Wasco. We also have a close relationship with the forestry department because that is critical in the watershed. Forests is one of the entities that helps us protect that resource in that it reduces evaporation for instance. And trees forestry retain water. Secondly, they are critical in maintaining slopes, keeping the structural integrity of slopes intact and preventing what we always have a problem with during times of storms, landslides and so on. Whenever you have a landslide you lose a portion of your water resource through groundwater and so on. And when I speak of groundwater in the upper reaches of a watershed, that groundwater emerges as surface water. A portion of that groundwater emerges as surface water downstream of any stream. So yes you get infiltration and the trees would help you with that. And there is another organization or entity that we work with closely in order to protect that resource. So there is this kind of integrated approach to ensuring that we have steady supply of water. Let's speak specifically to the DVRP as it pertains to the watershed management plan funded for the disaster vulnerability reduction project. Tell us a little about that. Okay, so the agency as a whole, we have many stakeholder partners. And to actually engage your stakeholder partners you need to have the facts on the ground as to what is happening. And since we're moving towards an integrated water resource management approach. So it's basically compromising for everybody because everybody uses the watershed. Whether you know it or not, you use the watershed. So then in the agency... By the way, just before we move on, explain in very simple terms what is a watershed? Okay, a watershed is an area where the water that flows in that land mass, if it were to let's say reach, go to the sea, it would all accumulate at a particular point. So wherever in that land mass that you would pull that drop of water, it would end up at a particular point. So that's what it is. So the watershed is surrounded by a ridge. So everything within that ridge falls within that particular specific area. So in a nutshell, that's basically what it is. Maybe I could add to that. Maybe your viewers might be wondering, we said 47 watersheds, how do we know? And so on. And that is the question you're asking, how do we define a watershed? And Jason mentioned that it flows to the sea. That's the critical part. You have tributaries and you have rivers and tributaries feeding to rivers. What would guide you defining a watershed is when you look at our coast, where you see an outfall into the ocean. You start from there and then you work backwards. Now when you work backwards and you walk up that river, you'll see the tributaries. But then if you look up, you'll see the ridge, the mountain ridge, and a watershed implies that the watershed, as it falls. And so if you look at Millet and you look at another area next to Millet, that's another watershed. There'd be a mountain ridge that splits the rainfall on both sides and flows down into that river or that tributary. And that's what defines what a watershed would be. So you'd have the rows of watersheds. We have a castries watershed, which is very complex. And we have different ones, Mabuya, Valley, and so on. Okay, so back to the DVRP intervention. So the watershed management plan. So what it is, it's basically characterizing the watershed. So like we mentioned, we have 47 watersheds, but some may be similar and some may be very distinct based on what is happening. So in order to have that integrated water resources management approach, you need to know exactly what is happening in the watershed. Now from the WRMA point of view, we look at it in terms of water quantity and water quality. So once you know what is happening, you could almost, it's almost like going and take a blood test. So with that, you could actually have an idea as to what is happening in the watershed and basically what measures you can take to bring it to the point that you want to basically. Okay, so we have about just 30 seconds, but that's okay. So you will continue with this, but then we go to part two of our discussion where we will dive a lot more deeply into the DVRP intervention, which is what we have started anyway. And to speak a lot more to other issues pertaining to the DVRP. So you do stay with us and just hold on for the second part of the discussion. Very fascinating discussion to date to inform you as to what the WRMA is and some of the interventions being addressed through the disaster vulnerability reduction project. We'll see you in a very short time.