Poor water quality: Two more city schools for urgent cleaning

Sep 15, 2017 News

The Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) yesterday said it has identified two other schools in need of urgent cleaning. This comes as the state company said it is continuing to test and monitor the water quality in schools countrywide.
The two schools are the Alexander Village Nursery and Precious Jewel Nursery.
Whilst these locations require urgent attention, it is important to reiterate that routine cleaning of the school tanks is recommended at all locations to prevent any growth of pathogenic organisms, GWI advised in a statement yesterday.
During a recent meeting with Ministry of Education officials, it was decided that all tanks must be cleaned twice a year. The Ministry of Education has since commenced cleaning at some of the schools under the supervision of its engineers and GWI’s Head of Water Quality, Deon Anderson.
“Subsequent to the cleaning of the tanks, they were disinfected with calcium hypochlorite to eradicate any residual microbial growth, and water samples were taken from the tanks and tested to determine the effectiveness of the cleaning.”
Meanwhile, the C-Field Sophia Nursery School was cleaned unsupervised prior to the re-opening of the school.
“Water samples were taken to compare the effectiveness of supervised versus unsupervised cleaning. It was found that at the two schools where the cleaning was supervised, the water quality results were free of E. coli. However, in the case of C-Field Nursery, where there was unsupervised cleaning and no subsequent disinfection, the results yielded a high number of E.Coli (10 coliforms per 100ml). Hence the tanks at C Field Sophia Nursery need further cleaning and/or disinfection.”
GWI urged that that all cleaning exercises at schools be conducted under supervision.
To date, the water quality has been monitored at every Nursery and Primary School in Georgetown. Based on the list provided by the Ministry of Education, there are 29 Primary and 32 Nursery schools in the city.
Testing has also been extensively carried out in Linden, Region Ten. To date 16 Nursery and eight Primary Schools have been monitored.
“GWI’s Water Quality Department will continue to monitor the various locations on a monthly basis, covering all the schools countrywide, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, ensure that excellent water quality is maintained even after storage in school tanks.
“The water quality results will continue to be shared with the relevant authorities within the Ministry of Education so that interventions can be done in a timely manner, thus ensuring adequate and safe potable water supply to our nation’s children.”

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