a specialist journalist calls for “a Marshall plan to rectify the situation”

Tens of thousands of residents are deprived of water on the island due to malicious acts. Journalist Thierry Gadault, a specialist on the issue, spoke about this crisis on franceinfo.

Nearly 130,000 users are deprived of water in Guadeloupe due to malicious acts. But the crisis seems to have lasted longer, according to Thierry Gadault, independent journalist, author of two books on water management in France, Diving in murky water(ed. Michalon, 2018) and Guadeloupe, the island without water (ed. Massot, 2022). “The water crisis began in the late 1990s due to a lack of maintenance of water networks”he explains on franceinfo, Saturday March 23.

franceinfo: The archipelago suffers from several decades of poor water management?

Thierry Gadault: The water crisis began in the late 1990s due to a lack of maintenance of the water networks and the main infrastructure that connects the two parts of the island. For 10-15 years, between a quarter and a third of the population have encountered problems not only with water supply but also with the quality of drinking water. Some pipes allow more than 80% of the water circulating there to escape. The drinking water transport network leaks everywhere, and the distribution network is made of very poor quality material which could not withstand local operating conditions, leading to thousands of leaks. We need a Marshall Water Plan to rectify the situation.

Why these problems?

On the transport network, it was supposed to be cast iron, asbestos and cement pipes, but they had to be changed at the end of the 1990s and that was not done. This transport network is leaking everywhere. And then on the final part of the distribution network, we used, as in mainland France, a plastic material, HDPE. Except that instead of lasting 20 years like in Paris, it only lasts five years. And so this material which was laid en masse in the late 1990s and early 2000s leaks everywhere, and it is often replaced by the same material. So the leaks continue.

And why aren’t there the means?

The largest water operator is virtually bankrupt because the main water unions were very poorly managed in the 1990s and 2000s. And the single authority that replaced them has no money.

“Between 30 and 40% of water bills are not paid. Knowing that water bills are not sent to 30 or 40% of subscribers, because either the meters are faulty or there are none not.”

journalist Thierry Gadault

at franceinfo

So the union’s income is very insufficient, and is burdened by salary costs. They have 100 to 150 excess employees compared to unions of the same nature and size.

The repairs seem unnecessary given what you describe.

There are emergency repairs that need to be done, but in fact there is a three or four year plan of 500 or 700 million euros. But we must rebuild all the water networks and all the sanitation networks, because behind the water crisis there is also an acute sanitation crisis. We are rather between 2.5 and 3 billion that would need to be invested over five years, for example, to provide water for all Guadeloupeans.