Three new water treatment plants are to be set up in Regions Two, Three and Five to provide treated water to some 48,000 residents.

A Government Informa-tion Agency (GINA) press release said construction of the plants is to begin shortly under the Water Sector Consolidated Project (WASCP) funded by the World Bank at a cost of US$11.3M with US$1.1M counterpart funding by the Guyana Government.

The project in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) is at Lima, Essequibo and will be located at a site near to the Lima pump station, to serve water consumers from Queenstown to Walton Hall.

The plant at in Region Three (Essequibo Islands/ West Demerara) is at Vergenoegen and will also be located near to the Vergenoegen pump station to serve consumers from De Kinderen to St Lawrence.

The Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice) water treatment plant will be located on a plot of land behind the Cotton Tree Nursery School and will serve consumers from Shieldstown to Inverness.

The release said that according to CEO of Guyana Water Incorporated Karan Singh the projects will be realized at a time communities are showing signs of development and people’s needs are changing.

The project will assist in Guyana reaching one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals which is to reduce by half the number of persons without “sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation” by the year 2015.
In addition to those three plants, two similar facilities are to be constructed at Sophia and Central Ruimveldt in Georgetown by April 2009 to benefit over 41,000 residents, the release added. The plants should produce up to 12 million litres of purified water per day.