Utilities Director provides power and water update: “team has found power fault in Lakepa”

Since last week, the villages of Lakepa and Liku have been using a substitute portable generator to power the water bores in each village. 

It was only until Tuesday this week when the power team finally found the power cable fault which has affected the power and subsequently water supply for the eastern villages from Mutalau to Liku in the past few weeks. 

BCN News was able to speak with the Director of Utilities Clinton Chapman on Wednesday morning who has confirmed with the health department for its regular quarterly water testing. 

“We’ve had some challenges in the water as you’ve understood. We also had confirmation from the department of health that this first quarter of 2023 we’ll be carrying out water quality testing to see the status of our water supply at the moment.”

“We encourage people to keep using the UV treatment systems in the village. That has been quite successful. People know where they are and are using it for their drinking water. Continue that, if not boil your water before consumption. We are awaiting some funding from some donors to fund the hardware required to fix those problems,” says Clinton. 

The impact from the power outages in the past weeks have affected the eastern villages from Mutalau to Liku. It was understood during this time that there was a fault but the team could not detect the source of this fault until Tuesday this week.

“For Lakepa, we had challenges in the last power outage with the power supply at the end of the northern feeder from Mutalau to Liku. The team found the fault just yesterday (Tuesday). They found the main cable fault from Lakepa village down to the bore.”

“We will fix that soon and then we will have the water bore running on the main power again. Up till now, we’ve been using a diesel generator…we have to manually maintain the generator twenty-four hours a day.”

”In some cases the tank does overflow but someone is monitoring that. Once we get the mains cable repaired then it will be back to automated operation,” says Clinton. 

Director of Utilities Clinton Chapman is seeking the communities patience as they work to get the power and water supply especially in Lakepa running back on the main source.  

Boil water notice is still in effect and people are still reminded to not drink from their taps in their homes. UV water treatment systems have been set up in the community halls of each village and are advised to fill up your water using these systems for clean and safe drinking water. 

Meanwhile, the SPC Pacific Community Project is also currently working on connecting the green rain water tanks for homes in the villages of Lakepa and Liku that do not have the water tanks set up in their homes.