Dominica Signs Deal To Export Drinking Water

DAVID McFADDEN

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The lush but poor Caribbean island of Dominica will allow an export company to ship billions of gallons of its river water to parched countries around the globe, officials said Saturday.

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit's Cabinet signed a deal Thursday with a Colorado company to collect drinking water from the volcanic island's interior and ship it to countries as far away as the Middle East, said Lucien Blackmoore, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Public Utilities, Energy and Ports.

The 10-year license allows Sisserou Water Inc. to collect 3 billion gallons (11 billion liters) of fresh water annually from the Clyde River, Blackmoore said.

He said studies found extracting the water will not harm islanders or damage the delicate ecological mix of Dominica, a tropical island of 71,000 people about 30 miles (45 kilometers) long and 16 miles (25 kilometers) wide. The country brands itself as the Caribbean's "Nature Island."

One of the company's four directors is former Cabinet minister Atherton Martin, who in 1998 won a Goldman Environmental Prize for protecting Dominica from being despoiled by a major copper mine. Martin did not answer telephone calls Saturday.