In the first of several pieces on the impact of ethical lapses and general avarice on water resources, I've focused on an odd controversy in the West Indies involving a search for subsurface aquifer water on Nevis Island.
On December 10th, the Hon. Senator Mark Brantley delivered a speech on the Budget debate in the Nevis Island Assembly and allocated a significant portion of it to complications and confusions attending a megawatershed drilling project that drifted away from its proposed purpose, finding new water for the island and ended up just drilling a deeper bore hole into the existing water supply aquifer whereby it now mysteriously controlled the islands water supply as the island water authority decided to inactivate its own wells.
The upwelling of exasperation turned on the mysteriousness and secrecy surrounding agreements the Government made with an under the radar drilling outfit called BEAD, (Bedrock Exploration and Development Technologies). It appears that BEAD made claims about prior experience that could be seen as misleading and then, over the course of an exploration that commenced in October of 2007 and mainly made dry boreholes in the area targeted for new water, BEAD switched it's game plan over to merely augmenting the existing water supply aquifer with deeper boreholes to improve flow rates.
This more modest improvement somehow resulted in its proprietary control of the island's water supply. This in turn has the opposition party, the Concerned Citizens Movement, seething and Senator Brantley's riposte is an effective and lucid summary of the problem.
Last week’s Observer newspaper stunned many with its investigative reporting on the shadowy dealings with water. We were told by this government that it had signed a deal with BEAD for BEAD to drill, find and sell water to the Govt and people of Nevis. Like geothermal, the precise terms of the deal are shrouded in mystery. Like geothermal Junior Minister Powell is at the centre of the mystery.
From what we have been told, BEAD was to find an additional 1 million gallons of water to be put into the system. Mr. President the word “additional” is critical for it means that the water from BEAD would add to the water the Govt was already getting from its own wells which had been supplying water to the whole of Nevis well before we had ever heard of BEAD.
I applaud the Govt for looking at expanding the water supply but again I ask why the secrecy? Why the shroud of darkness over a Govt which claims to be in the sunshine?
The piece in the Observer set out 2 things: 1. BEAD had found so called new water by tapping into the same aquifers that the Govt already tapped into with the Govt wells. 2. The Govt had shut down its own wells and was now buying water from BEAD’s wells.
If that is correct Mr. President then BEAD has NOT found any new water and has NOT put any additional water into the system. BEAD has drilled into already known water sources and our Govt has closed its wells which have been serving Nevis faithfully in preference to buying our own water from BEAD. This sounds like the Flintstones Mr. President. It beggars belief so I did my own investigation and found that it is true that Govt wells have been closed in favour of buying water from BEAD.
I would have thought that it would have made more sense for the Govt to continue producing its own water and then buy extra water from BEAD as and when BEAD finds it. But again Mr. President this water deal defies logic. By closing the Govt wells, the Govt guarantees BEAD that it will buy its water. Why? To whose benefit? Obviously not the people of Nevis!
Has BEAD found new water as the Government claims or has it merely tapped into known existing aquifers? Again I went to GIS. Sometimes I think the Govt forgets what it tells the people of Nevis.
In an article published by the Govt on 29th Oct, 2007 the Govt told us this:
“Under the BEAD contract the company is expected to develop one million gallons of ground water per day to compliment the current water supply now available to the island.”
The Govt went further and assured us in that article that:
“new wells would be located away from existing wells”
Mr. President we have been mislead and hoodwinked by the Govt and by BEAD. There is no doubt that the water we are getting from BEAD is not additional as we have closed our own wells. And there is no doubt that BEAD has tapped into known aquifers right in the area of existing wells despite its promise to drill away from existing wells and therefore find truly new water. How do I know this Mr. President? We go back to GIS.
In an article dated July 1st 2008 the Govt celebrated the new well at Maddens and the water situation had become so dire in Nevis that we all celebrated with the Govt. But this is what the Govt’s water engineer and expert said to us:
“The quality [of the water] is excellent but in fact the same quality of water as the existing Maddens and Butlers wells. Obviously it is in the same aquifer that same underground system, although BEAD has managed to tap into a more direct free flowing part of the aquifer.”
This is the Govt’s own engineer confirming for the world that BEAD had merely tapped into the same aquifer at Maddens and Butlers. That must make it clear that there is nothing new about this water Mr. President. It must also be clear that BEAD did not drill away from existing wells as it claimed but tapped into the same water source, the same aquifer, the same underground water, that the Govt was already tapping into.
If this deception was not bad enough Mr. President we were told by the Junior Minister just last week that the Govt had extended the contract with BEAD. We are told that the terms are similar. Since we don’t know what the terms were in the first place, that doesn’t help very much. Again a shroud of secrecy.
But what was the stated reason for the extension of BEAD’s contract? Again we researched the matter and here is what Minister Powell told the press:
“All the people of Nevis know that when we have water challenges, the people in Hamilton are some of the hardest hit. So we are putting the new well in the Hamilton area where we hope to get another half a million gallons of water.”
But Mr. President that sounds exceedingly odd to me as the first drilling for water was done in Hamilton when the first contract to BEAD was provided. In an article on GIS website on 29th October, 2007 the Govt and BEAD told us that:
“drilling would commence this week at the first drill site in Hamilton Estate which is at high elevation … We are going to drill the first well up at Hamilton, that’s an area which needs water, it’s on high elevation and we should be done drilling that location in about 2 weeks.”
On 29th November, 2007 Minister Powell told the Nevisian people:
“On Thursday afternoon while we were in Cabinet session I received the kind of telephone call that we had been waiting on that BEAD in their first drill site in Hamilton had found some water.”
Mr. President that what we were told in October 2007. Yet in December of 2008, more than a year later, the same Junior Minister now tells us that he has extended the BEAD secret deal for the purpose of drilling in Hamilton, drilling that was done over a year ago and drilling that the same Minister told us was successful a year ago.
Mr President somebody is fooling somebody but it’s not me and the CCM. But am not done with water yet. In a GIS article dated 5th February, 2007 when the secret contract was awarded to BEAD, a Michael Miville of BEAD stated:“The capital cost to the NIA is zero. BEAD takes on the responsibility of all capital expense in return for a 10 year contract with the government to sell the water to the government at a fixed rate”.
Incidentally the article has a picture of the Junior Minister smiling sweetly at the pronouncement. I smiled too for which of us wouldn’t like the idea of zero cost to the Government for finding additional water for the people of Nevis?
But that too Mr. President seems to be false. For the new exploration for water that BEAD has now been given an extended contract by the Govt, we see a figure of $2.5 million. To quote from the Budget delivered yesterday at para 43:
“Significant allocations to capital expenditure for 2009 are for the Water Drilling Project $2,500,000.”
So how come Mr. President we have moved from the promised zero capital cost to us to a budgeted figure of $2.5 million? If we are paying BEAD to find more water in Hamilton or elsewhere in Nevis then why should we still turn around and buy the water that we paid them to find from them?
Again Mr. President I ask who is fooling whom?
By Kenneth Williams
The people of Nevis are having to fork out thousands of dollars in these hard economic times to pay for water provided by a company that received favourable treatment from the Nevis Island Administration (NIA), when half of the contracted amount of water can be provided by government owned wells.
Bedrock Exploration and Development (BEAD) signed a secret contract with the Nevis Island Administration in late 2006 and despite calls from the media the contents of this agreement have never been released to the media or to the public.
The Junior Minister in the Ministry of Communications, Works, Public Utilities and Post in several statements claimed that BEAD has contracted to supply one million gallons of water per day.
A government source speaking to The Observer on condition of anonymity said that the contract called for BEAD to source and supply previously undetected groundwater from the bedrocks of the earth. This water was to be sourced using satellite imaging and mapping and drilling into the crust of the earth. According to the source that is not what BEAD has done. Instead, BEAD simply drilled high up into the known aquifers of the government’s existing wells.
A government water department document that The Observer has obtained shows that nine (9) of the Government’s existing wells have been turned off and padlocked. This, our source said, was an order from the Administration. Since BEAD wells were drilled into the existing government aquifer, that means the government and BEAD are sharing the same source of water.
Our government source who is familiar with the contract between BEAD and the Administration told The Observer that their action is in total violation of the agreement. The agreement, he said, calls for BEAD to find new water from previously undetected sources.
He said, “The government will pay millions of dollars for water it already had. Government would have had the same result with regard to gallons per minutes had they taken their existing wells deeper.”
The same source continued, “What you have there is some sort of cooked up arrangement between the Administration and BEAD so that BEAD could reach its contracted amount of water by the government turning off nine of its wells which pumped around 500,000 gallons per day. This is half of the amount BEAD was contracted to begin pumping water into the government water system in mid 2007.”
Statement of BEAD’s success elsewhere in doubt Minister Powell in a statement the day he flipped the lever for the commencement of BEAD’s drilling told the press: “This company is very experienced in this type of drilling having done exactly the same thing in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the Eastern Caribbean."
The Observer checked this statement out and discovered that Nevis is an experiment for BEAD. The man behind BEAD was one of many scientists on the Tobago project which was done by another company. Dr. Hoag was ”one of about a dozen scientists on the project here,“ a Trinidad and Tobago official told The Observer. More importantly, Dr. Hoag branched off and formed BEAD in 2005, three years after the Tobago project.
Another area where BEAD’s work did not leave a good track record was in Grenada . According to Grenada Government officials Bedrock signed a contract with the Grenada Government on September 16, 2005 but failed to fulfill the contract. This along with BEAD’s claim to have done the Trinidad and Tobago project when at the time of that project BEAD did not exist creates doubt as to whether BEAD and/or Powell set out to deliberately mislead the people of Nevis.
This leads to a riposte from Dr. Hoag that does little to offer a corroborative framework of participation from impartial arbiters.and takes refuge in technical jargon blended in equal measure with obfuscation and bald denial.
Dear Editor:
I am writing this letter to the (e)ditor in order to correct the record as recently printed in the December 5th issue of The St. Kitts-Nevis Observer (“Nevisians Gagging on Watery Promises”). I feel obligated to respond to this article in the interest of the public.
Once again The Observer has made false accusations based on no factual information pertaining to the water development programme undertaken by BEAD for the NIA. I find the article the misleading and I welcome the opportunity to offer some facts relating to the various false accusations and to enlighten the public.
Contrary to The Observer’s statement that the contract was signed in late 2006, the contract award was announced in February 2007 but was not signed until May 2007. Drilling began in November 2007, which was six months from the contract signing. During that six-month period, we planned and executed extensive geological and geophysical exploration islandwide, with more than 21 miles of resistivity lines being laid, surveyed, and analysed.
In an effort to locate the drill sites in close proximity to existing storage reservoirs and due to the fact that the western side of the island was underlain by hot water due to geothermal activity, the area of investigation was severely limited. In spite of these limitations, BEAD drilled 3 wells in the western portion of the island in an effort to find potable water.
As is often the case in nature and real life, the wells were insufficient in their performance. These wells were of low yield and fairly high temperatures, and some had water quality problems. Consequently drill targets on the eastern side of the island were selected. Extreme care was taken to locate these wells so as not to impact the existing NIA wells while being close enough to existing NIA storage reservoirs so that the water found could be easily pumped into the NIA distribution system.
The article claims that BEAD’s newly installed wells are in the same aquifer as NIA’s existing wells. That accusation is completely false. BEAD’s wells are located in completely different aquifers, which were unknown prior to the BEAD exploration program. In fact, they are one-half to a mile away and are over 600 feet deeper than the NIA wells. These wells are located in volcanic intrusive rocks, which obtain their recharge from Mt. Nevis, which has very high rainfall, whereas NIA’s wells extract water that infiltrates into the “apron” of volcanic debris that surrounds the island.
The evidence that the BEAD wells are in completely different aquifers includes not only data from the well logs and geophysical surveys but the differences in the water quality of the two sources. The BEAD wells have a TDS (total dissolved solid) content of 210 to 230 mg/l whereas the NIA wells have TDS ranges from 300 to 900 mg/l. (The World Health Organization guideline is a maximum TDS of 1000mg/l.) This very low TDS for the BEAD wells indicates that the recharge to this aquifer is very rapid and the residence time from recharge to discharge is very short. The diagrams below show the geological relationship of the Maddens Heights and Fothergill’s Tank wells and NIA’s existing wells.
I am appalled at the accusation that I lack the credentials necessary to successfully develop groundwater resources in the Caribbean. I have been the senior technical scientist and/or project manager for all projects conducted in the Caribbean for Earthwater Technology, HydroSource Associates, and BEAD. I managed a team of professional scientists, designed the exploration program that was appropriate on each island, and personally located most of the successful wells drilled in the Caribbean over the last nine years. In fact, I have authored seven professional articles and have been co-author of four others that describe the results of my success in developing groundwater throughout the Caribbean.
Bedrock Technologies LLC spent many thousands of dollars in Grenada prior to learning that the government officials could not guarantee payment. As a result, Bedrock Technologies could not complete the project and consequently Bedrock’s business there became non viable and the project was abandoned.
With reference to the geothermal project of West Indies Power, BEAD graciously allowed me to use my experience and BEAD’s equipment for the initial exploration activities for West Indies Power. Many of the techniques used for developing groundwater supplies are applicable for the development of geothermal resources. Consequently the combining of exploration activities for both projects resulted in a much more detailed understanding of the subsurface geology of Nevis than would have been possible if separate entities conducted the work independently. This effort is not “shrouded in mystery” as has been stated in The Observer. I authored and delivered a paper at the 2007 Caribbean Water and Wastewater Conference (CWWA), held in St. Kitts in October 2007, entitled “Simultaneous Development of Water and Energy for Sustainable Growth in Nevis.”
The fact is that the current and future water supply of Nevis is far better and more secure than thought possible by many until now. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the water development project and my professional expertise and credentials with the media and public alike.
In closing, I would once again like to publically thank the many government ministers, Nevis Water Department staff, subcontractors, and the general public for their continued support and encouragement during the water exploration and development process.
Thank you for publishing this letter.
Dr. Roland Hoag, PhD
Executive Vice President
BEAD(Nevis)Ltd
Assuming that BEAD has been an honorable godsend to the Nevisians, it still has huge appearance problems. There is confusion as to the provenance of its prior drilling experience in Tobago, confliciting reports about its actual accomplishments in Grenada and implications of incompetence and desperation in the conduct of its operation on Nevis. None of this is improved by the absence of impartial third party auditors or observers.
Nor is it helped by BEAD's remarkable lack of a public presence online in a time when any restaurant can have a website. One would think that an entity of this caliber would want broader knowledge of its capabilities and track record. But, no, the only reference one finds in a common search, beyond news clips is from an entity, GWRI, (Global Water Resources International), which purports to be a kind of fund raising subsidiary.
So until BEAD emerges from behind the curtain with greater transparency, it will be dogged by problems of its own making and tend to reinforce the assertions made by its array of detractors. It also suggests a need for third party oversight in these situations where small island nations are vulnerable to exploitation by purveyers of technical expertise from the developed world.
