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Parched MHS pleads for water
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Posted on Sep 14 2005
With only a 30-minute window to stock up on water, the Marianas High School is facing a water crisis and is pleading for help from the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.
Although the school’s power supply is now back to normal, MHS vice principal Joe Borja said the water supply has been very limited for several weeks now and not enough to accommodate the needs of the school’s 1,400 students and faculty members.
Borja said the CUC gives them water from 6am to 6:30am only; this schedule is too short and not enough to fill their tanks, he said.
The school has 5,000-, 8,000- and 10,000-gallon tanks and the 30 minutes that CUC gives them is not sufficient to fill up the tanks. Borja said CUC used to provide them water everyday from 3am to 9pm.
For the moment, Borja said the school is managing to fill up some of its tanks with the help of other government offices. He said the Department of Public Works and the Saipan Mayor’s Office are helping the school obtain their water supply.
He said the high school library, though, does not benefit from this because its pipes are not connected to the tanks that are getting water.
Borja said he is appealing to the CUC for action on this. He included in his appeal any other public schools that are faced with the same situation. He said he has been communicating with CUC but he has grown tired of hearing the same answer.
“I get the same results from them and I am now ashamed to talk to them,” he said.
An MHS teacher told Saipan Tribune that the student population has been affected by the shortage. The teacher said that, most of the time, they don’t have water to flush the toilets in the school.
