10 Dec 2012

Samoa Water Authority encourages whole community to support water conservation

7:24 pm on 10 December 2012

The acting managing director of the Samoa Water Authority, Ekiumeni Fauolo, says everyone in the country has to work together to conserve water.

While it is now the rainy season a prolonged dry spell has left the country's water catchments dry.

Mr Fauolo says the Authority is trying to raise more awareness of conservation measures within the community.

He says catchment areas also need improved protection with more use made of re-afforestation.

Mr Fauolo says in the short term they are making greater use of bore holes and putting in new pump stations.

"Longterm is a drilling programme that we will lay down for the next 5 years. So we are mainly going to tap much more into our underground water resource - something we did not want to exploit too soon but the fast rate at which our surface water resources are diminishing is quite alarming."

The acting managing director of the Samoa Water Authority, Ekiumeni Fauolo.