Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) last night cer­ti­fied that wa­ter em­a­nat­ing from the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant was safe to drink.The EMA made the state­ment in a press re­lease af­ter its in­ves­ti­ga­tors con­duct­ed tests on the wa­ter sup­ply from the plant around 6.30 pm.

"The EMA in col­lab­o­ra­tion with WASA con­duct­ed tests at the well that the wa­ter is be­ing pulled from for pub­lic use and the read­ing as at 6.30pm on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2015, was at 0 mil­ligrams per litre (mg/L) for To­tal Pe­tro­le­um Hy­dro­car­bons," the re­lease said. It al­so said fur­ther tests will be con­duct­ed over the next few days to en­sure the wa­ter sup­ply is not re­con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.

"Our Emer­gency Re­sponse and In­ves­ti­ga­tions (ERI) team is scour­ing ar­eas up­riv­er of the Plant to as­cer­tain the pos­si­ble source/s of the sub­stance while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly con­duct­ing tests on the wa­ter leav­ing the Plant to as­cer­tain the pres­ence of hy­dro­car­bon," the re­lease said.

The au­thor­i­ty said it first learnt of the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion at the Ca­roni Riv­er, which sup­plies the plant, around 10 pm on Tues­day. Since then it has re­ceived re­ports of fur­ther con­t­a­m­i­na­tions in Cara­po and Manuel Con­go, San Raphael, which were be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed up to late yes­ter­day.

Ear­li­er, EMA chair­man Dr Al­lan Bachan said three teams were dis­patched af­ter rem­nants of hy­dro­car­bons were seen up­stream along the Ca­roni Riv­er."The teams have been out very ear­ly look­ing to see what is the source of this leak. We are li­ais­ing with WASA to as­cer­tain the ex­tent of the im­pact," Bachan said.Say­ing the is­sue of dump­ing was of ut­most im­por­tance, Bachan re­newed his call for more re­sources for the EMA.

"This kind of prob­lem shows the po­ten­tial im­pact peo­ple's ac­tions can have on the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty," Bachan said.Call­ing for the is­sue of dump­ing to be dealt with se­ri­ous­ly, Bachan not­ed: "At the end of the day, pol­lu­tion has long-term con­se­quences for the so­ci­ety."He al­so said EMA teams al­so have been mon­i­tor­ing the hy­dro­car­bon lev­els at the plant. He said ini­tial in­ves­ti­ga­tions could not de­ter­mine who was re­spon­si­ble for the pol­lu­tion or what it was.

"We have picked up rem­nants of hy­dro­car­bons fur­ther up­stream so we be­lieve that it is an up­stream spill and we are do­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions to de­ter­mine who is the po­ten­tial cul­prit," he said.