PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten — In a press release from NV GEBE and the Dutch ministry of Internal Affairs it was stated that as of Sunday, October 1st, at 12.00 noon NV GEBE will be making drinking water available to the public on the eastern side of the island by means of three storage tanks located at McDonalds at the Belvedere roundabout, Fresh Market parking lot and at the entrance Festival Village.
This drinking water is purified water and originates from the reversed osmosis (RO) unit at the Festival Village that was brought to Sint Maarten from the Netherlands. The Dutch Ministry supplied the units, tanks and arranged for the engineers and the St. Maarten Inspectorate of Health VSA, in close collaboration with NV GEBE.
The tank sites will be supplied with drinking water between 7.30am – 19.00pm. All tanks are equipped with various water taps. Persons living in the areas of the tanks are kindly requested to bring along their jerry cans where they will be able to fill these containers with drinking water. The Red Cross will distribute a limited amount of jerry cans at the different locations.
The company is looking at the possibility of building more storage tanks that will be able to assist with the drinking water situation as early as October 2, 2017. Aboard the Dutch ship Karel Doorman 20 tanks and 5 trucks will arrive on St. Maarten to be able to assist with this. The tanks will also be located on the eastern side of the island. The goal is that community of Sint Maarten should not have to walk more than 500 meters for clean drinking water in areas where this water is not yet drinkable from the tap.
NV GEBE is working diligently to ensure normality back to the community of St. Maarten.
