The National Water Commission (NWC) has re-routed water from another system to supplement customers served by the Spanish Town treatment plant which had to be shut down, following the effluent spill into the Rio Cobre last week.

However, this re-routing has resulted in customers of the other source, the Eastern Head Works System experiencing some service disruptions.

Several communities in St Catherine have been without piped water for about 5 days, due to the NWC taking proactive measures to prevent contaminated water from getting to its customers.

Residents have had to resort to buying truck loads of water from private contractors, and they have called on the NWC to provide trucked water.

NWC’s Corporate Communications Manager, Andrew Canon said it is not clear how long this situation will last.