Government Senator Norman Grant, while supporting the motion, argued that the country's water problem lies in the management and distribution of the commodity.
However, Grant said rainwater harvesting "must become a bigger part of the conversation" as the country deals with the strategy to provide all Jamaicans with potable and irrigation water.
He emphasised that the installation of rainwater-harvesting systems in new housing developments would mitigate the predictable drought conditions experienced mainly during the dry months.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Drought-triggers-Senate-support-for-rainwater-harvesting_13778719
Drought seems to move mountains where they existed before. In Santa Fe, New Mexico it took a severe drought a decade ago to move the city to adopt expansive water conservation measures and the county to adopt mandatory rainwater harvesting for larger homes.
In Atlanta it took a drought to enact leading legislative actions legalizing rainwater drinking systems. The same for California's new water programs and it is the same in Texas.
Although drought is never a good thing, it is forcing governments to evaluate strategies that had no been looked at before. Mandates are one approach, rebates and incentives another and guidelines a third. Mandates level the playing field so everyone must abide by the same rules and have the bigger, longest term impact at a direct cost to the builder and homeowner. Rebates and incentives; even paying for the entire systems, have much less impact and cost the government and thus all taxpayers for something only a few will take advantage of. Guidelines are by far the preferred approach in the United States and have even less long-term impact.
Eventually as drought becomes more and more prevalent guidelines will move to incentives and then to mandates. Water is a common and the cost of saving it should be a direct cost. This will drive prices down and lead to the biggest savings of this precious resources that most of us have come to think of as a human right.