Ali­cia Llanos

In re­sponse to the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Of­fice of T&T de­clar­ing that the na­tion is in fact ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a drought, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is in­ten­si­fy­ing its re­stric­tions on wa­ter us­age. The an­nounce­ment came yes­ter­day from Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mustapha Ab­dul-Hamid at the sit­ting of the Low­er House in the Par­lia­ment cham­ber. Ab­dul-Hamid said the au­thor­i­ty was ex­er­cis­ing its pow­ers un­der the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty Act and the Wa­ter­works and Con­ser­va­tion Act to re­strict the use of wa­ter and to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the re­source. He said since the na­tion is of­fi­cial­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing drought and that this is the first time since 1946 that the na­tion has not had rain­fall over 31 days, WASA has tight­ened its re­stric­tions.

He said the in­creased wa­ter re­stric­tions are:

1. No­ti­fi­ca­tion that rivers and wa­ter­cours­es that im­pact on the Ca­roni sys­tem are strict­ly off lim­its to any pub­lic ac­tiv­i­ty in­clud­ing the ab­strac­tion of wa­ter.

2. Reg­u­la­tion of ab­strac­tion from oth­er rivers and wa­ter­cours­es

3. New wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion sched­ules

4. Stiffer penal­ties for vi­o­la­tion of re­stric­tions

5. En­force­ment of the ban on the use of hoses, pres­sure wash­ers and sprin­klers as well as the op­er­a­tion of foun­tains

6. Close mon­i­tor­ing of con­sump­tion by the top 200 large scale cus­tomers

7. Pub­lic School Leak Re­pair Pro­gramme

Ab­dul-Hamid said the new and in­creased wa­ter re­stric­tions have im­me­di­ate ap­pli­ca­tion. He as­sured the House that WASA is mak­ing head­way with a num­ber of its dry sea­son projects, in­clud­ing re­view­ing a pro­pos­al to barge wa­ter from at least three rivers on the North Coast to ports in the south­west of the coun­try. He com­mend­ed cit­i­zens who have abid­ed by WASA's ear­li­er call for wa­ter con­ser­va­tion. Ab­dul-Hamid said, how­ev­er, it was re­gret­table to learn that many com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to ig­nore the call for wa­ter con­ser­va­tion and "gen­er­al­ly demon­strate a mind­less dis­re­gard to the wa­ter cri­sis fac­ing the re­gion and na­tion." He said this de­fi­ance should be dis­con­tin­ued. WASA plans a news con­fer­ence for Mon­day to clar­i­fy the in­ten­si­fied wa­ter re­stric­tions.