No water for Regent and environs - “Overpopulation and Deforestation Affecting Water Supply in Sierra Leone.”

Guma Valley Water Company Supervisor of Babadorie, Regent, Mr. Samura has said that the Congo and Sugar Loaf dams are virtually empty, so there is no water to supply the Babadorie Reservoir, which means Regent and its environs will not be supplied with water until the rains.
Visiting the Babadorie Reservoir, the Supervisor said they are now cleaning the reservoir awaiting the first rainfall. He said they have positioned themselves properly so that as the rains start Sugar Loaf dam will start supplying the reservoir.

He said the reservoir was built in the 1970s for less than five thousand people but now it has to serve more than fifty thousand, which makes it difficult for them, and making it precarious and embarrassing for them.
“We have been complaining about the deforestation taking place around the dams and reservoir. Sugar Loaf dam, which has the capacity to serve the entire village is now at its worst stage because all around the dam people have cleared the forest, plotting such thick forest, which has never belonged to any individual.”
Mr. Samura averred that even the reservoir is not spared as all around there are houses; “all the trees that were planted when the reservoir was constructed have been cut down, thereby exposing the water to the sun and not allowing the cycle to operate properly.”
He stressed that the only solution now will be to start to ration the water come next year so that they will be in the position to supply the area till the rains.
It could be recalled that in 2003, when Dr. Bobson Sesay was Minister of Lands, the Ministry had three reservoirs at the SS Camp and people destroyed them to build houses.
These reservoirs were part of the Regent water reserve that would have come in handy, but they are no more. Awoko Newspaper wrote so many stories and appeals for these reservoirs to be spared, but nobody listened. They were all destroyed and the catchment areas all deforested. The end result today: the rain pattern has been affected and water is now hard to find in the Regent environs.
It is now two weeks since Regent village and months in other villages like Gloucester and Leicester have gone without water and even the streams that the people usually turned to have all been polluted because of the deforestation and the expansion of the village. Some of the villagers have to come to Freetown to find water.
A resident of the village said this is the worst story for the village as it was Regent that was the hub for water when the city was suffering for water because there was water in abundance in the village, but the resident said what is happening today is unbelievable. “I never in my life thought that Regent of all villages will go for two weeks without water, I would never have believed if somebody would have told me so, few years ago.”
Monday May 09, 2016

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