Nine Years, No Water: Who’s Actually Responsible for Fresh Pond?

About thirty residents of the Fresh Pond community in Burrell Boom have lived without running water for nearly a decade. To this day, those residents say the have relied on rain, donated water, and expensive deliveries to meet their daily needs.

According to some residents, they have appealed repeatedly to the village council, government representatives and even the Belize Water Services Limited (BWSL). They say their calls have went unanswered despite assurances that a permanent system is on the way.

“There is only one neighbour that’s been giving us water here for these couple years… He’s the one that’s been giving us the big hand here to everyone, but there are a few families here that have been coming to live and build here, but they go because of the same situation. We don’t have any water,” said Nayda Escobar, a Fresh Pond resident.

“So we are asking if we can have a water system back here,” she added. Meanwhile, another resident said life becomes especially difficult during the dry season.

Residents say they fall into a jurisdictional gap. Too rural for Belize Water Services Limited, not rural enough for the Ministry of Rural Transformation, and stuck in between while nearby developments get full water access.

Residents say they were told a water system would be completed by December 2023. “From then we haven’t heard anything. We’ve been going back to back with them, and they say that they will try to find someone to bring water for us, but still nothing working out for us, so eventually everyone is tired of it,” Escobar said.

News Five reached out to BWSL for comment. Get the full details of this story in tonight’s News 5 Live newscast. Tune in at 6 o’clock.