AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Environment Lack of Water....

There are two wells at Consolidated Water's plant on Ambergris Caye, and both are at a depth of 45'. It should be noted that they are NOT fresh water wells, but rather seawater.

Here is a quote from the Consolidated Water website:
"The raw seawater for the plant is obtained from wells located on site, avoiding the need for expensive pre-treatment equipment and chemicals associated with open sea intakes. Reject water from the plant is disposed of via deep wells, also located on site. The plant utilizes diesel engines to drive the main high pressure pumps and hydraulic turbochargers to recover energy from the high pressure brine stream.

Consolidated Water is also responsible for chlorine disinfection of the final product and reservoir storage."

(Source: www.cwco.com/html/AmbergrisCaya.html)

Hm..... this island has a vast system of underground caverns - water flushes through all the time ........ so, if the CW intake is seawater, and if it is massively polluted, we might reasonably assume the same pollution is headed out to sea ..... and ultimately to the reef? I hope not, but for sure we need to find out.

All the more reason for an environmental study - "yesterday".

Why aren't the business owners/residents/stake holders of San Pedro and Ambergris Caye, taking to the streets on this one?

They have been waiting for the scientists to determine the "mystery" substance that is in the water. I agree seashell, someone needs to light a fire under someones butt.

I would like to see channel five post the entire press confernece somewhere for everyone to watch.
The two 45 ft wells do not belong to CW, they belong to BWS and are on BWS land. BWS is looking into using these wells to supliment the water from CW. Clearly these wells were not sufficent on their own previuosly. The well that CW draws from is different.
CW has always worked with saltwater, hence it is an RO plant. The issue is not it being salt water but as they explained in the press conference the water in the well they draw their supply from has been "fouled."

Seashell and Keller have the right idea. I do think that we need to find a way to get more of the public up to speed on the accurate information first.
Does anyone have any ideas on ways to get this information out to more of the public?

Does anyone know if the water that is coming down the pipe "safe" to drink by North American standards?

Water in the wells comes through the aquifer and would normally be fairly clean. It's quite possible that all the digging and dredging associated with Sugar Caye development has opened up a passage in the aquifer to the existing wells. The cloudy water filled with silt and debris would stop up the RO filters in a few hours. Asking Sugar Caye's hydrologist to analyze the situation would be a waste of time. He will give you an answer that suites the development. No matter how it is getting into the wells the only solution is to find a source of clear water to feed the RO system. Shut down the development and wait to see if that clears it up, drill new wells or drill the existing ones deeper and hope you find a good water source.

Yes, no problem with town water.

does the water company test the water AND report the results? Only way to tell if water is OK.