The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MPU) has con­firmed that a new wa­ter re­sources en­ti­ty will soon be formed un­der the min­istry and vest­ed with the func­tions of wa­ter re­source man­age­ment that cur­rent­ly re­side in the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s Wa­ter Re­sources Agency.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Mar­vin Gon­za­les MP, re­vealed the de­vel­op­ment at a me­dia con­fer­ence host­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice (TTMS) on Wednes­day, De­cem­ber 7, 2022, at the Min­istry’s head of­fice in Port of Spain.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, the new en­ti­ty—which will be called the Of­fice of Wa­ter Re­source Man­age­ment (OWRM)—will play a fun­da­men­tal role in the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Na­tion­al In­te­grat­ed Wa­ter Re­source Man­age­ment Pol­i­cy (NI­WRMP), which was re­cent­ly ap­proved by Cab­i­net and is now be­ing rolled out.

“The OWRM will be re­spon­si­ble for man­ag­ing all sur­face wa­ter, ground­wa­ter and nearshore coastal wa­ters, for reg­u­lat­ing wa­ter ab­strac­tion and use, for es­tab­lish­ing min­i­mum stream flows, and for ad­vis­ing on mea­sures to pro­tect and con­serve land use for aquifer recharge, wa­ter­shed pro­tec­tion and en­vi­ron­men­tal needs,” MPU stat­ed in a re­lease on the is­sue.

Min­is­ter Gon­za­les al­so an­nounced three projects that will ben­e­fit the Met Ser­vice, name­ly: the con­struc­tion of new head­quar­ters in Pi­ar­co; the pro­cure­ment of a Geo­sta­tion­ary Op­er­a­tional En­vi­ron­men­tal Satel­lite (Goes-16) Re­ceiv­ing Sys­tem; and the re­fur­bish­ment of the radar tow­er in Bras­so Ve­na­do.

“Both the Goes-16 Re­ceiv­ing Sys­tem and the re­fur­bished radar tow­er will im­prove the TTMS’ ca­pac­i­ty to pro­vide re­al-time com­pre­hen­sive in­for­ma­tion about in­com­ing and cur­rent weath­er events,” Min­is­ter Gon­za­les ex­plained, not­ing that each project was be­ing im­ple­ment­ed for the ben­e­fit of the gen­er­al pub­lic.

“The over­ar­ch­ing aim of every in­ter­ven­tion and strat­e­gy I have men­tioned—from in­te­grat­ed wa­ter re­source man­age­ment to the mon­i­tor­ing and as­sess­ment of weath­er and cli­mate—is to im­prove up­on our ca­pac­i­ty to serve the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, not just for the present but for the fore­see­able fu­ture,” he said.

Min­is­ter Gon­za­les ob­served that these ini­tia­tives were well with­in Gov­ern­ment’s Vi­sion 2030 De­vel­op­ment Strat­e­gy, which pri­or­i­tizes the im­prove­ment of pub­lic util­i­ty ser­vices by pro­vid­ing greater ac­cess to high qual­i­ty ser­vices, sup­port­ed by re­silient in­fra­struc­ture and sys­tems.