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Dr. Adams blasts GWI for ‘dangerous’ water safety claims
(Kaieteur News) – Former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr. Vincent Adams, has sharply criticised the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) over its response to the findings of the 2025 Public Utilities Commission (PUC) report on water quality.
In a letter to this publication on Thursday, Dr. Adams described GWI’s defence of the report’s findings as misleading and dangerous.
Former Head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Dr. Vincent Adams
“I was embarrassed and astounded by the Guyana Water Inc.’s (GWI) statement reported in the July 3, 2026 Kaieteur News article that ‘Water quality issues flagged by PUC affect only taste, colour and appearance, not safety’,” he wrote.
According to Adams, GWI attempted to deceive the public by omitting the actual measurements contained in the PUC report.
“True to the government’s code of conduct, GWI has attempted to deceive the people, not only by leaving out the actual measurements that would make it impossible to back up their ludicrous claim, but also insultingly tells the people not to believe the coffee-coloured water they see with their own eyes. This GWI statement is nothing but irresponsible, callous and dangerous to the people’s health,” he said.
Adams noted that the issue is personal for him, explaining that he was one of 11 engineers specially trained by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to establish and operate GWI when it was created in 1972.
“We know first-hand the world-class water authority that was handed over to the PPP/C,” he said, adding that the institution has since descended into “an abyss of incompetence and neglect of its sacred mandate to provide reliable, clean and safe water to the public.”
The former EPA head further accused GWI of recklessly assuring citizens that it is safe to consume water that scientific evidence suggests may be hazardous.
“In a normal country, it would be an oxymoron for a nation dubbed ‘the land of many waters’ to have ‘water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink’,” he said, quoting English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Adams then addressed the three contaminants identified by the PUC as exceeding accepted standards—pH, turbidity and iron.
Explaining the pH scale, which ranges from zero to 14, he noted that it is logarithmic rather than linear, meaning each unit represents a tenfold change in acidity.
“For example, a pH of four is 10 times more acidic than a pH of five and 100 times more acidic than a pH of six. This means that the 3.7 pH measured at Linden is 630 times more acidic than the World Health Organisation’s safe pH limit of 6.5.”
He warned that highly acidic water is corrosive and can dissolve heavy metals such as copper and lead from plumbing systems, contaminating drinking water.
According to Adams, prolonged exposure to those metals can lead to strokes, cancer, kidney disease, memory loss, high blood pressure and reduced bone density. He added that children are especially vulnerable because their bodies absorb heavy metals more rapidly.
He also argued that highly acidic water may indicate inadequate treatment, leaving harmful pollutants such as pesticides and other chemicals in the supply.
Turning to turbidity, Adams explained that it measures the cloudiness of water and serves as an indicator of filtration effectiveness.
“The higher the turbidity, the more particles are present, and those particles can carry disease-causing microorganisms such as viruses, parasites and bacteria,” he said.
Referring to the PUC’s findings at Grove, Adams said no technical measurement was needed to recognise the severity of the problem.
“The obvious coffee-coloured water at Grove already indicates extremely high turbidity. The actual measurement 29 times above the limits set by both the US Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organisation confirms the significant health risks associated with consuming such water,” he said.
He urged GWI to immediately withdraw its public assurance that the water is safe to drink and instead take urgent steps to fulfil what he described as its sole mandate—providing reliable, clean and safe drinking water.
“In the meantime, I humbly wish to dissuade the public from following GWI’s inexplicable advice that the water is safe, despite its irrefutable scientific indications of being hazardous to human health,” Adams said.
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