Lower East Canje to benefit from Sheet Anchor WTP
Georgetown, Guyana: Sunday, September 30, 2018 – Residents from Betsy Ground, Gangaram and surrounding areas are among the 15,000 customers from some 24 communities in Berbice, Region 6, who will benefit from improved water quality when the Sheet Anchor water treatment plant is completed.
A Kaieteur News article published on September 30, 2018 titled “New Sheet Anchor water treatment plant on schedule” stated that residents in these areas are uncertain if the plant will serve them.
GWI rejects this notion outright, as Managing Director of the utility, Dr. Richard Van West-Charles has said on numerous occasions to both the media and residents, that the residents of Lower East Canje were taken into consideration during the initial planning of the project and will be served by the water treatment facility when it comes on stream in September, 2019.
GWI, in a press release on June 1, 2018 following a site visit, quoted the Managing Director as saying, “This is going to be very important in terms of the villages that are going to be the beneficiaries from Number 25 Village down to Gangaram. Gangaram was previously supplied by Guy-Su-Co.”
The serving areas (population) that stand to benefit from the water treatment facility include:
| Village Names | |
| 1. Industry or No. 25 | |
| 2. Dun Robin or No. 23 | |
| 3. Warren or No. 21 | |
| 4. Kendalls or No. 19 | |
| 5. Bohemia or No. 17 | |
| 6. Susannah or No. 15 | |
| 7. Hermitage or No. 13 | |
| 8. Treurniet or No. 11 | |
| 9. Lewis Manor or No. 9 | |
| 10. No. 7 | |
| 11. Prospect | |
| 12. Palmyra or No. 4 | |
| 13. Cumberland | |
| 14. No. 3 | |
| 15. Sheet Anchor | |
| 16. Ordnance Fort Canje | |
| 17. Canefield | |
| 18. Rose Hall | |
| 19. Reliance | |
| 20. Adelphi | |
| 21. Good Banana Land | |
| 22. Little Bleyendaal | |
| 23. No. 10 | |
| 24. Goldstone Hall or No. 11 (Gangaram) |
The Sheet Anchor Plant represents just one of the components of a larger project for which a US$31.6M loan was signed in 2014 by the government and the IDB for a Water Supply and Sanitation Infrastructure Improvement Programme.
To date, the plant is 34 per cent complete. Providing an update during a recent site visit, Project Manager Richard Persaud explained that the fencing for the project is complete, while works are ongoing on the sedimentation tank where the base slab has been poured. The excavation and backfilling for the first and second ground storage tanks have been completed and the blinding concrete poured for one tank.
The project also entails bringing the water from the three wells which serve existing communities to the treatment plant, via a distribution network. This system will also be extended to serve those areas that were served by the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo).