WAF Chief Operating Officer, Seru Soderberg says their infrastructure is susceptible to varying weather conditions such as continuous rain and flooding.

Climate change is a growing concern for the Water Authority of Fiji.

WAF Chief Operating Officer, Seru Soderberg says their infrastructure is susceptible to varying weather conditions such as continuous rain and flooding.

Soderberg says they are noticing that while rain events are shorter, it is becoming very intense and causing flooding resulting in blocked valves.

He says this sometimes forces them to send their divers to clear the system which is very risky.

“We, unfortunately, can send somebody into the intake to clear it when it’s in that condition, it’s very unsafe. If we put somebody here, they get thrown over the air. There’s nothing but rocks, sub rocks at the bottom. They get hit. They either get severely injured or they will die. So we have to wait. At that point, the treatment plant reservoir level is dropping. Production is rocky. So that’s the challenge that we’re facing at the moment and we are looking at other avenues of actually doing this. Better access for our divers where they can actually access these locations in a very safe environment, even though it’s flooded.”

Soderberg says they are working on having the resilient infrastructure to withstand such weather conditions.