Dominican Environment Minister, Francisco Dominguez, sounded the alarm Friday over the possible lack of water in Haiti due to drought, deforestation and the recent plan of the Dominican republic to build a dam upstream of the Artibonite’s river; Haiti’s longest.
The Dominican minister said that rivers that provision the Haitian capital with water are already polluted. “ With little rain everyday the water is less, and with little rain, the wells of Port-au-Prince have water intrusion, that is there is less water, contaminated and brackish.” he said.
Dominguez would like to know what will be the fate of Port-au-Prince in 5, 10 or 15 years? "Where will the waters come from to provide to 7 million Haitian brothers? What will happen when the product of climate change register extensive drought processes?”
He advised that the Dominican republic should promptly work for itself as well as for Haiti to protect the country’s forests and rivers.
“What we as Dominican should draw our attention is the day that Port-au-Prince runs out of water, because nobody is going to die of thirst and everyone will come running here and there would be a crisis in 10, 15 years that can degenerate into a crisis of violence, of incompatibility in coexistence and of serious difficulties for the Dominican Republic and for Haiti,” he warned.
Despite the recent announcement of the Dominican Republic's intention to go ahead with the construction of a damn on the Artibonite's river, which will severely impact Haiti, Haitian officials have not made any objections to their dominican counter part..
