No Quick Fix For Harbour Island Says Bahamas Electricity Corporation

BEC Officials in dialogue with Harbour Island Residents at Valentines Resort & Marina on Monday, August 16th, 2010

Brilanders protest persistent power failures

(Harbour Island, Eleuthera, Bahamas) - Over two hundred residents of Harbour Island including a handful of visitors to the island took to the streets on Monday August 16, 2010, to protest, by many accounts, the continuous interruption of electricity from the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC), which has been especially bad this month. During the second week in August residents described outages in excess of 30 hours, including a stint on Wednesday, August 11th that reportedly left many in the dark for about 16 hours.

BEC has spent many millions in building the new 16 Megawatt generation facility in Hatchet Bay, meant to service Eleuthera and Harbour Island, and have said that they have moved from loading shedding on Eleuthera, though we can attest that power outages throughout August have still been fairly frequent, however, not for any protracted periods at least in some parts of Central Eleuthera.

Harbour Island is yet to benefit from this facility which officials admit is not currently operating at capacity, purportedly due to difficulties integrating the new system with the old distribution network.  For Harbour Island the problem is more complex as BEC says its seeking to upgrade the island's services along three fronts. 

Firstly, the generation capacity is to be put in place at the Hatchet Bay Plant. At this point BEC has moved into the second phase of implementing a new underwater distribution cable to take electricity from the Three Island Dock in North Eleuthera to Harbour Island, a process which has been ongoing in August and officials said on Monday should be completed by the end of the month. Unfortunately, for the residents of Harbour Island their problems will not end there as the transmission of power from Hatchet Bay will still have to be upgraded.  BEC says it is planning to put in place a dedicated transmission line from Hatchet Bay to Three Island Dock, but anticipates that this will take some time, owing in part to the distance and issues pertaining to land.

(L-R) Chief Councilor Darrell Johnson; Mr. Mario Smith, BEC Eleuthera Manager; Mr. Jerome Elliot, Assistant General Manager Engineering; Mr. Mark Hudson, Assistant General Manager Family Islands faced off in frank but cordial dialogue on Monday August 16, 2010 at Valentines Resort and Marina.

Many of these issues were discussed openly as a group of protesters along with protest organizer, Chief Councilor Darrell Johnson, met with three officials from BEC at the beautiful Valentines Resort & Marina.  Representing BEC were Mr. Mario Smith, Eleuthera Manager; Mr. Mark Hudson, Assistant General Manager Family Islands; and Mr. Jerome Elliot, Assistant General Manager Engineering.

Protestors used the opportunity to communicate their grievances which included; their livelihoods being impacted by the frequent power disruptions, only to then face disconnections by the company for failure to pay their bill. The detrimental cost to persons and businesses in Harbour Island was described as being caused by operational disruptions on the job, destroyed equipment and the seriously negative impact on the tourist industry. The Eleutheran spoke with a visiting American couple outside Valentines Restaurant who said frankly that they had decided against bringing their yacht to the island because of the frequent power interruptions they had heard about.

Residents air their plight.

One of the concerned citizens in the meeting on Monday morning spoke directly on the issue of the Island's rental home market as someone who cared for Rental Home properties - a vital part of the economy for Harbour Island and Eleuthera. They shared the constant experience of having to try and explain to guests why the home they had spent thousands of dollars to stay in for a week or more had no electricity for much of their visit, resulting in a very poor vacation experience, cancellations and loss of good will - all of which could have a long lasting effect on Harbour Island's economy in lost repeat business and possibly lost first time business with negative word of mouth affecting the choice of destination.

In conversation with The Eleutheran the Chief Councillor also explained how damaging the persistent power outages were to the economy of Harbour Island citing that even though larger hotel properties had invested in backup generators, guests on Harbour Island traverse the island and have had the negative experience of being in the dark at other facilities while they ate and played.

BEC officials on Monday were not attempting to create any illusion of a quick fix on the horizon, rather they were determined to explain their long term plan of action to, according to them, significantly improve conditions for the island, and admitted that they were lacking in communication with the population.

Councillor Johnson expressed his understanding that there would be no quick fix to the island's Electricity issues, based on the meeting held with BEC officials, saying that it appeared that they were going to have to continue to endure the outages for the long haul. This being the case, he also is asking for BEC to have a Town Meeting with all the residents of Harbour Island to explain what they are now doing, what the outlook is for electricity on the island and to set realistic expectations of BEC's current service levels. This he said is  important, so that people can adjust their lifestyles to survive the period of time needed to complete the third and according to BEC, final stage of getting reliable electricity service in Harbour Island (the new transmission line between Hatchet Bay and Three Island dock - to supply the power to the recently laid seabed cable between Three Island Dock and Harbour Island).

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