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In November we told you that the New River was regaining its health as conditions along its banks had seen marked improvement. 

Now, predictions from the regional climate change centre are claiming that the region is set to experience an even more severe drought than last year. We asked C.E.O Cho what measures are being employed to maintain the health of the New River.

Percival Cho - CEO, Department of the Environment

"We have received from predictions from the regional climate change centre that Belize and several other countries are very likely going to experience severe drought for an extended period of time, that is predicted to be longer than last year. So already that gives us a mandate to be very much more aggressive with preparations for any possible repeat of the eutrophication event we saw last year. So what do those preparations look like, initially the task force met last week and they had discussed around providing an update to the ministry, being myself and the minister so that we are up to speed with actions are being taken since last year, so one, that has been done. Two we in discussion with them are considering proposing against some more aggressive measures to specifically look at controlling the volumes of effluent from point sources we have identified that are going into the new river. So with eutrophication as we had explained last year, when there is a lot of nitrogen from agricultural fields, urban areas, couple with a lot of organic input, say waste material, etc. You get a high level of anaerobic breakdown of these materials and they create a very toxic environment in the river."

"So if we reduce either amounts of the nitrogen going in or the organic matter, we should be able to see some level of positive impact. At the same time, we need to be prepared for any event and so we'll obviously be prepared to conduct this same level of aeration in the rivers as we did last year. So I think I'm scheduled to meet with the task force members or a select group of them including the experts we had hired last year to invent all the pinpoint sources of effluent to discuss what data they have come up with and begin to look at that strategy of reducing the point sources. We have also some meetings proposed with some of the larger emitters of effluent in that water shed region for early February and obviously the purpose of that would be ensure that we get there by their cooperation with the agenda we will put in place for this dry season. We have always seen the willingness to cooperate from these industries, I think the DOE and the ministry have a good working relationship with these industries, so it's a matter of I think ensuring that we look at the major sources and begin to make them very much compliant in any reduction that we request of them in volumes. So one thing like you said is the quality of the effluent and the other thing is the volume. In this case we also want to focus on volume which is in addition to the quality of the effluent."

The D.O.E in an attempt to guard the health of the New River, has scheduled meetings with industry stakeholders that are major sources of effluence to advise on best practices for quality and volume.