Courtney Menzies traveled to the island today and has this story.

For years, Caye Caulker residents were forced to buy purified water to drink because they didn't trust the water coming out of their taps - and for good reason. But now, BWS' Reverse Osmosis plant is up and running on the island, and that smelly, salty water is now potable.

This will now go a long in assuring that the islanders have more than enough water for consumption - which had been an issue BWS had had in the past.

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Water is life and here in Caye Caulker, La Isla Carinosa, there were two issues. One there was a shortage of water, there was not enough, secondly the water didn't taste good so people don't want to drink it and it was forcing a lot of people to buy water when they don't need to buy water. BWS has been seeing the projections, the growth and now as we go into the north and we're having some fairly big investments and hotels, they figured that we need to start to plan for that so that the next 7, 8, 10 years from now."

Cornelio Acosta, Executive Chairman, BWS
"The island consumes about 201,000 gallons per day and what we could have previously met was about 190,000 gallons in other words, we're meeting 95% of the daily demand of the island. The board management and of course the government have prioritized the need in meeting these scarcities that we've been facing so we had done more analysis and had proceeded to purchase $150,000 desalination plant which would then give us a capacity now of up to 300,000 gallons per day, meeting well enough what is the demand, at least from now to the next 10, 15 years."

And the cleaner water has already start making an impact with the locals and the tourists:

Seleny Villanueva Pott, Chairlady, Caye Caulker
"The water wasn't the best quality, it had a smell and you could actually taste the chlorine, but since the technology has changed there's no smell, there's no taste. I know a lot of tourists are now complimenting the quality of the water. It's drinkable, I think you guys tried it this morning so we're happy to say that a lot of families will be saving on drinking water since that is now available to us."

"Here, most people, and still to date, a lot of people are still [buying] water, BWSL is just launching their campaign that the water is now safe and you could drink it and this morning was one of the tests where people are saying that, wow, I didn't realize that the water has improved significantly."

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"That project now through an IDB loan that we've been working on, we're going to go into more communities to be able to install that so that they could also use the potable water to drink and not just to bathe and wash dishes and so forth so to me that's groundbreaking."

But BWS didn't just inaugurate the RO plant in Caye Caulker today, they also broke ground for another water plant, which will serve as a backup when necessary.

Cornelio Acosta, Executive Chairman, BWS
"One of the strategies that BWS has undergone is looking at redundancy and contingency plans. A lot of the time we rely primarily on a single source, for example, Belize district, on the river, and we have several systems that are direct production to distribution. Caye Caulker has a storage facility but if something were to happen to the plant like last year we had some challenges, the plant went down during the Easter period and it created challenges for us and we said, you know what, it's time to have a redundancy plan, having an alternate site that could also provide storage in the event that there's a natural disaster occurring or that the plant may need to undergo, sometime it would be going down, that we'll have enough capacity to withstand and provide to the caye."

"We have recently acquired some land on the southern tip of Caye Caulker and that is where we plan to invest another 8.5 million dollars in having a second site, $150,000 storage tank along with a 150,000 gallon per day reverse osmosis system."

And while the PM, Minister Michel Chebat and Andre Perez, and the BWS team were out there, they also visited the two island schools, where they donated thousands of dollars to students in need.

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"What BWSL did, they gave a grant of $5,000, they spoke with the principal to point out those that need that can't make their fees and so the principal will be paying those fees on behalf of BWSL for both primary school and high school. I've also made a commitment, I'm going to give them another $5,000 through the chairlady of the village, Ms Pott, and she will work with the principal to ensure that they get it to the children and so it's important for us to be able to give the proper support to our children to be able to learn and not have to be worrying if they're going to be sent home because they can't pay their fees."

So with school fees paid, and potable water in their taps, the residents of Caye Caulker have a lot to celebrate after today.