Missing water

Lorette writes*

Water on Basse-Terre’s coasts is blue and beautiful, but water from Basse-Terre’s taps is… missing.

Unlike metropolitan French departments, the overseas department of Guadeloupe is suffering from important water mismanagement leading to regular water shortages for consumers. Reports from the past years powered by the Guadeloupe Water Office (Office de l’Eau Guadeloupe) have shown consistent worrying data on severe leaks in the network, on growing concerns concerning the degradation of groundwater resources and on the lack of water treatment. This all led to more-than-angry consumers demanding transparency and accountability from the entities responsible for Basse-Terre’s water network and distribution.

Constant water shortages are the most visible consequences of a series of water mismanagements in Basse-Terre.

First major problem relating to water shortages is linked to leaks across the water network. On average in Guadeloupe, only 40% of distributed water volumes make it to consumers’ homes, or, in any case, is accounted for. However, for Basse-Terre in 2018, only 25% ended up in the consumers’ taps, which was the lowest water output in Guadeloupe that year. Existing infrastructure is falling apart and the million-euro budgets dedicated to the maintenance and reconstruction of the network never seem to help improve the service.

Furthermore, an average of 30% of bills were left unpaid in 2015, compared to a national average of 1.3% unpaid bills in 2013.  Several factors are at play here. On the one hand, this lack of payment from the consumers/customers may be due to a lack of satisfaction: too many water shortages, low quality water and high water prices. On the other hand, petty corruption might be at play, with water meters not reporting consumed volumes, which in turn leads to money being spent for the distribution of water and water volumes never accounted for.

Yet leaks might not be the only reason behind the lack of accessible drinking water for Guadeloupeans in Basse-Terre. There are considerable concerns when it comes to groundwater and surface water pollution from chlordecone, a pesticide used between 1972 and 1993 that has now contaminated around 90% of Guadeloupe and Martinique. With Basse-Terre draining water exclusively from groundwater resources and rivers, everyone can potentially be affected by this contaminant. Serious health issues are associated with chlordecone, especially the rise of prostate cancers which turns the distribution of water into a great threat to public health in the region.

Finally, another mismanagement that leads to consumers not receiving (enough) drinking water and repeated water shortages is the lack of water sanitation across the region. Water sanitation is, for reasons cited above, absolutely necessary for a quality drinking water and to ensure public health. In 2018 for instance, 67% of the major wastewater treatment plants were not up to standards. This is once again due to bad infrastructure and low maintenance of the existing infrastructure, because of a lack of stable money inputs.

Bottom Line: Highly polluted water, lack of wastewater treatment and regulators as well as bad infrastructure and management of the water network leave Guadeloupeans in Basse-Terre thirsty and angry.

* Please help my Water Scarcity students by commenting on unclear analysis, alternative perspectives, better data sources, or maybe just saying something nice 🙂