Wesley Gibbings
One day, many years ago, while in a radio newsroom reflecting on the once vexing obligation at another frequency to present the latest weather bulletins several times a day, I was tersely and impatiently advised by a senior media colleague that, in T&T, “it is either going to rain or it is not. Why the fuss?”
The 2019 Dry Season Climate Outlook released by the T&T Met Services thus ought to make life relatively easy for radio newsrooms. A short script: “It is not going to rain today,” even as the opportunity for context ought to mention climate change.
Of course, the “occasional light shower”, to use Met Office speak, will sometimes make a liar even out of Seigonie Mohammed–GML’s usually reliable weather lady. But, by and large, the experts have put their necks on the line by predicting a “harsh” dry season.
We shall therefore have the opportunity to come face-to-face with, and out of denial from, the fact that we collectively present a worst-case scenario when it comes to a pre-disposition to confront our water challenge.
Who, for example, is going to tell the fête crowd that fire hoses cannot and should not be turned on, full force, to bathe the drunken, early-morning hordes? Who, apart from me (I wash my car about once every six months or when the mechanic feels sorry for me) plans to reduce their car-washing routine?
Now that you have spent hours in the yard using your Xmas pressure washer to wash your wall, driveway, trees, spouses, cars, and pets; do you now plan to pack it away until the water supply returns to what you consider to be “normalcy”?
Who has been collecting rainwater to help irrigate their flower beds or flush their toilets? Who has been rationalising their wash loads to optimise water use? Who the hell turns off the tap while brushing his/her teeth?
Such a speedy descent from last week’s submission here on human rights, you say. But these are, in essence, the same discussion. The right to water and sanitation is, in fact, now recognised as a human right—with all the accompanying personal and public obligations of other rights.
It is true that human rights are the ultimate responsibility of the State, but in all instances, there are expectations related to private action.
For example, responsibility for water resources management cannot be considered to be the exclusive preserve of WASA—whatever its numerous shortcomings (including its absolute negligence when it comes to tidying up after itself).
Even as 48 per cent of water processed by the water authority is “unaccounted for” (the layman can be excused for inserting the word “wasted” here) household usage is not, at the same time, exemplary.
There appears to be a belief that whenever it rains, however briefly and over whichever terrain, there is a giant funnel that appears out of nowhere that directs rainfall into the pipeline networks of the country and directly into your running shower. There is another, related, question about the pipelines because it is not entirely incorrect to assert that there are some public water pipes, many of them in poor condition, that remain among the manifold mysteries of WASA.
All the while, T&T is not, as a general rule, a “water scarce” country, but is more often than not “water challenged”. If you use international benchmarks, water availability per capita is about 2,200 cubic metres while water scarcity is generally considered to reflect supplies of under 1,000 cubic metres per person, per year. Yet, we ought to be consistently vigilant.
Our main problem appears to be with what happens after our groundwater supplies are harvested, treated and piped. True, there are certainly issues associated with the cost of these processes, completely disproportionate pricing, and the issue of “non-revenue” (wasted) water. But public policy is incomplete without due attention to domestic, commercial and industrial practices.
Having water as a right does not mean it is “free”, it comes with a price tag computed in measures of personal responsibility and an obligation by the State to ensure that the agency charged with delivery of such a right is itself in much better health than it currently displays.