Customers are being urged to store drinking water by the Water Authority of Fiji (WAF) in light of adverse weather currently affecting Fiji.
“Intense rain events such as being experienced today and predicted to continue for the next week, while adding to our larger assets such as dam levels actually makes it more difficult with our current assets to produce continuous flow of safe water to our valued customers”, said WAF CEO, Mr Barry Omundson
“Some intakes where water is sourced in these conditions tend to become blocked with large amounts of debris flowing into the intakes. This reduces the amount of water we are able to collect and treat and then send to customers. Adding to the task is maintaining water quality when we experience intense rain as the heavy rain falls into a catchment area then travels swiftly to where we collect water and in the process picks up much dirt, leading to high levels of turbidity,” Mr Omundson explained.
Water Authority of Fiji have taken a proactive approach to solving these issues as fast as practical.
“We have commenced re-design of our intakes to make them less susceptible to being clogged and safer for our teams to clean with construction of new intakes planned shortly. Similarly, at vulnerable water treatment plants we are taking measures to reduce the risk and frequency of high turbidity levels affecting service delivery,” Mr Omundson said.
Water carting trucks are on standby and will be deployed as needed to impacted areas, with high priority given to hospitals
WAF urges all customers at all times to show resilience by storing water for two to three days.
“Customers should store drinking water for emergencies and boil all drinking water before consumption as an added precaution.”
“Water carting trucks are on standby and will be deployed as needed to impacted areas, with high priority given to hospitals,” Mr Omundson added.
For further inquiries as well as water carting requests, customers can call 3346777 or short code 5777 (all networks) or email contact@waf.com.fj
Adverse weather can cause problems such as:
- Clogging of the water intakes.
- Burst mains.
- Water treatment problems due to extremely high turbidity levels.
- Electricity supply issues.