Suriname identified as one of world’s top two sources of fresh water

Suriname identified as one of world’s top two sources of fresh water

Published on December 2, 2016

Amazone Resources towing fresh water to Barbados on a trial run

By Ray Chickrie – Caribbean News Now contributor

PARAMARIBO, Suriname — Alliance Partners of Monaco, which is moving to tap the lucrative drinking water business, has identified Suriname and Finland as the world’s top two sources of high quality drinking water during a press conference this week in Finland.

However, the company has chosen Finland because it is three hours away from Monaco. Nevertheless, Suriname isn’t so far from the EU, it borders France’s overseas department of French Guiana, and may have an advantage in tapping the EU market.

The Monaco-based company has partnered with Lahti Aqua of Finland to expand their global sale of drinking water in Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Asia and North America. Finnish bottled water is already being sold in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Persian Gulf.

Monaco investor, Guy-Alain Mierczuk, has identified Finland and Suriname as the best sources of high grade drinking water. During a press conference, after a meeting of Alliance Partners and Lahti Aqua in Finland, a French expert said, “Investors have two options for the best sources of drinking water, Finland and Suriname.”

Suriname, a multi-racial country, has escaped ethnic and religious bloodletting, is one of the greenest countries on earth, and is located in South America on the northern shore bordering Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana.

Alliance Partners group has an investment capital of three billion euros, and is mainly in real estate around the world. It has recently built accommodation for refugees in Germany.

Suriname, like Finland, has unspoiled nature, an abundance of fresh water from the Guiana Shield, and is now looking to profit from the growing demand for drinking water across the world. The Netherlands has funded a study to help Suriname develop this industry. Drinking water from Suriname has great export potential, but so far it has not been widely commercialized in the international market.

A Dutch-Swiss company, Amazone Resources, received a concession in 2012 to investigate water export. The company was then asked to conduct research into the social and environmental impacts before they are allowed to start exporting.

Last week, a boat was due to tow a giant bag made from PVC-coated fabric with enough water to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool from Suriname to drought-stricken Barbados and Curacao, as a test run for Amazone Resources’ technology.

The Barbados Water Authority, which signed a memorandum of understanding for the test run but is not buying the initial shipment, said in a statement that the accord is part of its long-term plans to tackle the impact of global warming. The trip to Barbados was expected to take five or six days.

Ironically, Barbados was impacted on Tuesday by torrential rains and flooding from a local weather system.

How Suriname Is Cashing In On Drought Conditions In The Caribbean

Caribbean360 – November 23, 2016

Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/suriname-cashing-drought-conditions-across-caribbean#ixzz4S1bz7R4U

Comments

demerwater On 12/06/2016 at 7:27 am
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They beat us to the punch.
https://guyaneseonline.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/water-is-the-next-big-commodity-guyana-needs-to-take-advantage-of-stanley-ming/
Fear is a non-productive emotion.
atomtrident On 12/06/2016 at 8:49 am
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The concept of water as a product as opposed to a public has always made me very uneasy.
- Rosaliene Bacchus On 12/06/2016 at 12:52 pm
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  Me, too. While we in California face our fifth year of drought, Nestle continues to pump our pristine waters to be bottled for profit.
  - atomtrident On 12/06/2016 at 1:03 pm
    
    I took a course on ethics, law and economics last year and we had a module on this very issue. Somehow I can hardly believe that something as basic as water is monetized.
walter On 12/06/2016 at 9:20 am
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Told you so years ago, Guyana should have been supplying water to the “Caribbean” from upper Essequibo years ago. Don’t know Suriname water, but Essequibo has good and clear water. Still time.
demerwater On 12/07/2016 at 3:14 am
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Yes, you did, Walter.
I wish to reiterate that it is possible – and profitable – to exploit the fresh water resource of the planet without doing permanent harm to the ecology.
The important concept is to intercept fresh-water before it becomes salt-water; for example, at the Land Of Canaan Relief Sluice.
Another, far fetched, idea would be to construct a large open-topped floating container and park it in the ocean. It will intercept rainfall (fresh-water) which would otherwise be lost to the ocean.
OTOH it might give rise to a 21st. Century form of piracy; or add a new dimension to ‘water wars’.
There is no need to worry about depletion of the resource. They taught me that the quantity of water on the planet has not changed since the time of Alexander the Great. It does change from ice to water to water-vapor in a continuous and continuing cycle. I believe it.
Thinker On 12/07/2016 at 6:47 am
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Barbados has to do like Bermuda. Perhaps Guyana too to avoid the VAT on water https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/roof-resists-hurricanes-collects-water
walter On 12/07/2016 at 8:47 am
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Not exploitation as much as filling a need for your “friends” With regards to collection might be better to have oversized containers to store upper river water for times of shortage and replenishing reservoirs. Guyana is in excellent shape.
guyaneseonline On 12/07/2016 at 9:25 am
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Barbados Told To Repair Leaky Mains To Ease Water Woes

By Desmond Brown – Executive Editor – http://caribbeannewsservice.com/

KINGSTON, Jamaica, Dec 07 2016 – A Trinidadian scientist has a very simple message for Barbados as the country grapples with chronic water shortages brought on by a prolonged drought: fix the pipes!

Professor of Tropical Island Ecology at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine John Agard said before the authorities here worry about the possible impact of climate change on the water supply, they should first seek to curtail the amount of water being lost through leakage.

“Why don’t they fix the pipes? Do that first before you worry about climate change, because with that alone you are losing more water than you will lose from the decrease in precipitation,” Agard said at an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) outreach event for the Caribbean held last week in Jamaica.

He cited a European Union-funded Global to Local Socio-Economic Climate Change Project which states that the anticipated ten to 11 per cent decline in precipitation due to the effect of climate change was far less than the amount of water being lost through leaky mains.

“Water leakage from pipes underground in Barbados is more than 40 per cent, and therefore they can manage climate change very well by saving water leakage underground.

“These are the kinds of lessons that we should act upon,” said Agard, a lead author of the fifth assessment report on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

He said the EU-funded study also placed Barbados on the list of the ten most water-impoverished countries in the world, adding that in addition to being in this grouping, a decrease in precipitation for the island would naturally “be terrifying”.

Agard explained that “Barbados has very good numbers to run models” because every house and every factory is metred.

“They know exactly how much water is
produced and how much water is used, because in Barbados they send everybody a bill for their water, so they measure everything.”

But he said the leakage of water underground due to old and rotting pipes was not unique to Barbados.

“I would be shocked if it’s any different in Jamaica or in Trinidad. Again, half of the water in Trinidad and throughout the whole Caribbean is leaking out from the pipes underground,” he said.

Meantime, Agard said the drought situation could prove to be a great “opportunity” for agriculture in Barbados.

“A decrease in precipitation means we should be looking for drought resistant varieties now,” he said, pointing to a project in Jamaica where a PhD student at the University of the West Indies had been studying many varieties of drought resistant sweet potatoes.

“You will get a decrease in the crop yield, however, something interesting was discovered. Because you have more carbon dioxide concentration in the air and plants take in carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide is actually a stimulant. So, if you have enough irrigation, you will actually get a higher yield of sweet potatoes and you need to compare the varieties to see which gives you the highest yield.

“So, there is opportunity, you could actually get more yield if you have enough irrigation because carbon dioxide acts as a stimulant and makes sweet potatoes grow faster. And there are many crops like that,
that we have to, with knowledge, turn it around and take advantage and plant more drought resistant varieties,” Agard added.

(This article was previously published in the Barbados TODAY e-paper here: http://epaper.barbadostoday.bb/Launch.aspx?pbid=87ad6005-1972-4d63-92b0-8927eda53c7a)
walter On 12/07/2016 at 2:21 pm
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40% leakage?? yipes
wally n On 02/07/2022 at 9:09 pm
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Guyana’s hidden asset, gonna last longer than oil…
TIME TO GET MOVING!

The CME Group is set to launch futures contracts tied to the spot price of water for the first time ever this week.

The contracts will allow investors and farmers alike to bet on the future price of water. The contracts are tied to the $1.1 billion California spot water market.

While water will officially join the likes of gold, oil, and other commodities in being traded on Wall Street, the contracts will be financially settled. This means buyers of the contracts who hold on through expiration won’t be greeted by a delivery of millions of gallons of water like they would for other commodity based futures like oil and grain.

The water contracts are tied to the Nasdaq Veles California Water Index which was launched two years ago. The index is driven by the volume-weighted average of the transaction prices in California’s five largest and most actively traded water markets.

Guyanese Online