?Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

?Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

As of mid­night tonight, there will be re­stric­tions on wash­ing your car or wa­ter­ing your lawn. Ac­cord­ing to the act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer at Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Dr Jim Lee Young, wa­ter re­stric­tion mea­sures come in­to ef­fect at mid­night, in an ef­fort to con­serve the coun­try's wa­ter sup­ply. "We're giv­ing no­tice to wa­ter re­stric­tion mea­sures and they will be ef­fec­tive as of mid­night this Wednes­day, and those re­stric­tions in­volve not us­ing hose pipes, wash­ing ve­hi­cles, wa­ter­ing lawns, etc. "All of these mea­sures are avail­able to us un­der the (Wa­ter and Sew­er­age) Act, and at the same time it sends a mes­sage to peo­ple that we want you to con­serve wa­ter."

He said de­spite an ac­tive cam­paign which start­ed in De­cem­ber to sen­si­tise the pub­lic about wa­ter con­ser­va­tion, "we find that peo­ple are not re­al­ly tak­ing it se­ri­ous­ly."

Lee Young was speak­ing to the me­dia dur­ing a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at WASA's head of­fice in St Joseph. He said one of the rea­sons the re­stric­tions were be­ing put in­to place was to en­sure peo­ple paid close at­ten­tion to the mes­sage. Ex­plain­ing the le­gal as­pect of re­stric­tions, WASA's chief cor­po­rate of­fi­cer, Dion Ab­dool, said no­tices would be avail­able in the me­dia and there would al­so be a "ro­bust mon­i­tor­ing and com­pli­ance regime. "We have im­ple­ment­ed our com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing ef­fort where WASA's po­lice will be back in the com­mu­ni­ty, en­sur­ing that we man­age our wa­ter sup­ply prop­er­ly and in ac­cor­dance with our statu­to­ry oblig­a­tions."

?WASA's plans for the fu­ture

?In­clud­ed in WASA's $335 mil­lion plan:

�2 1.6 km of 600 mm pipeline to be in­stalled from Four Roads, Diego Mar­tin, to Co­corite, and to be com­plet­ed by March.

�2 2.8 km of 400 mm pipeline will con­nect Tuck­er Val­ley to Care­nage, to be com­plet­ed by March.

�2 De­sal­cott to Ca­roni South Trunk Main, 1.6 km of 800 mm pipeline, to be com­plet­ed by Feb­ru­ary.

�2 Point Lisas to Clax­ton Bay, -3.7 km of 600 mm pipeline, to be com­plet­ed by March.

�2 Clax­ton Bay to Gas­par­il­lo, 5.8 km of 400 mm pipeline, to be com­plet­ed by April.

�2 Point Fortin to La Brea, 12.6 km of 400 mm pipeline, to be com­plet­ed by May.

�2 Cour­land WTP to Buc­coo, 12 km of 400 mm pipeline, set for de­liv­ery in June.

�2 Eng­lish­man's Bay to Run­ymede, 12 km of 300 mm, due in June.

�2 Five portable wa­ter treat­ment plants al­ready or­dered and to be in­stalled in Point Fortin, Pe­nal, Fyz­abad, Ma­yaro and Tal­paro.

�2 34 pro­duc­tion wells to im­prove the sup­ply in ar­eas such as Ari­ma, Arou­ca, Las Lo­mas, San­ta Cruz, Freeport, Brazil, Ca­paro, Lopinot, Plum Mi­tan, Mt Irvine, Guapo and Bloody Bay.

�2 24/7 Cus­tomer call cen­tre

�2 Re­duc­ing back­log of some 400 leaks