While some peo­ple have ex­pe­ri­enced the in­con­ve­nience of hav­ing no wa­ter in their taps for sev­er­al hours, oth­ers have en­dured days, weeks, months and some­times even years with­out the ba­sic ne­ces­si­ty.

Res­i­dents of Church Street in Matu­ra, how­ev­er, have been wait­ing and pray­ing for a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply for more than six decades—65 years to be ex­act

They are call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in par­tic­u­lar, to hear their fer­vent plea and pro­vide them with a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply in 2020.

They said af­ter sev­er­al pleas by res­i­dents to WASA, the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion had placed one wa­ter tank each in the area, a to­tal of two wa­ter tanks to serve over 300 res­i­dents, which are in­suf­fi­cient and are re­filled every three months when res­i­dents com­plaints.

Res­i­dents claimed WASA nev­er ser­viced the wa­ter tank they pro­vid­ed, but that it is the cor­po­ra­tion who fills the tanks when they feel like do­ing so.

They said the on­ly time they re­ceived a con­tin­u­ous sup­ply of truck wa­ter sup­ply was for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions and ap­pre­ci­at­ed this very much, but af­ter LG elec­tions tanks went dry and no ad­di­tion­al sup­ply was pro­vid­ed. The wa­ter tanks are there but re­main emp­ty.

Church Street res­i­dents are thank­ing God for the rain to fill their bar­rels and tanks for cook­ing and drink­ing.

Joyce­lyn Su­perville, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and spokesman for the 300-plus res­i­dents of the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty on the North East coast, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 13 miles from the town of San­gre Grande, said for the last 65 years the res­i­dents have been plead­ing with WASA and the cor­po­ra­tion to have this nec­es­sary com­mod­i­ty come to their com­mu­ni­ty. All they have re­ceived are promis­es, which are yet to be ful­filled. "They are on­ly bro­ken elec­tion promis­es," said Su­perville.

"Can one imag­ine that de­vel­op­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad are still with­out ba­sic com­modi­ties like wa­ter that are nec­es­sary to live a healthy and hap­py life. 'Wa­ter for All,' the late prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning’s vi­sion has failed and peo­ple are dis­ap­point­ed," Su­perville said.

She added that the Oropouche and Hol­lis Dams in Va­len­cia are close to them and pro­vide a reg­u­lar sup­ply to com­mu­ni­ties in San­gre Grande and en­vi­rons but yet Church Street res­i­dents are de­prived. In ad­di­tion, WASA's Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant in Matu­ra is about two miles from Church Street.

"Some­thing must be in­cor­rect or the Gov­ern­ment and rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties have no re­spect or con­sid­er­a­tion for the peo­ple who live in Church Street," she said.

Res­i­dents are grate­ful for the spring that ex­ists on lands of the Su­perville that they have ac­cess to for their dai­ly sup­ply of wa­ter for wash­ing, clean­ing and bathing.

Su­perville said chil­dren have to get up ear­ly on morn­ings and walk a quar­ter-mile through bush­es with pails, buck­et and bot­tles to get wa­ter from the springs. This is re­peat­ed on evenings af­ter school since they al­so show­er at the springs. "It's like we gone back in times," irate par­ents lament­ed.

One spring is about 20 feet deep and par­ents are con­cerned about the dan­ger for their chil­dren who can fall in while try­ing to col­lect wa­ter. "There are no safe­ty mea­sures around this spring well, chil­dren and par­ents are at risk," one res­i­dent said.

They said trekking through the bush­es to get to the spring is al­so un­safe. "You will nev­er know when the crim­i­nal el­e­ments will strike and in­ter­fere with our girls and moth­ers," one res­i­dent added.

Su­perville sug­gest­ed that in the in­ter­im, WASA or the cor­po­ra­tion could treat the spring wa­ter for res­i­dents to use.

Par­ents said be­fore us­ing the wa­ter they boil it, but ba­bies and chil­dren some­times get skin rash­es and itch­ing.

Nic­hole Re­ece, a moth­er of sev­en, felt there was bias in the way wa­ter was be­ing sup­plied as re­cent­ly Thomas Trace, with just a few hous­es, re­ceived a pipe-borne sup­ply.

"I have a prob­lem when I have to pre­pare food for sev­en chil­dren for school and get­ting wa­ter from the spring pose hard­ship."

Mervyn Rochford, a fa­ther of nine, ap­pealed for wa­ter for the 60 chil­dren in the com­mu­ni­ty rang­ing in ages four months to 14 years. "They are the fu­ture of our na­tion and grow­ing up by hav­ing to go to a spring to get wa­ter is some­what prim­i­tive in this age. Chil­dren should be able to have this ba­sic com­mod­i­ty for their dai­ly lives."

He said all cit­i­zens in T&T should be giv­en pri­or­i­ty by the Gov­ern­ment when it comes to ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties.

Res­i­dents said they have to pay $100 to fill a 400-gal­lon tank from a man who us­es his truck to sup­ply wa­ter. They said this was not fair to them as they are pay­ing tax­es just like oth­er peo­ple through­out T&T.

Su­perville said they had sev­er­al meet­ings with their coun­cil­lor Ter­ry Ron­don but nev­er saw their MP Glen­da Jen­nings-Smith.

They said they were told it will cost $1.5 mil­lion to run the wa­ter lines and asked Ron­don to speak with Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Robert Le Hunte.

Su­perville is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Le Hunte to give the peo­ple of Church Street a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply for 2020.

Ron­don said WASA took mea­sure­ment to run the pipelines at Church Street four years ago and dis­cov­ered that res­i­dents were squat­ters and that they need to be reg­u­larised by the LSA first.

"This does not mean they will not get a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply. How­ev­er, the process has to start all over again as wa­ter is life."

He promised to speak with Le Hunte.

Ron­don said he was al­so get­ting the full sup­port on this mat­ter from his Chair­man Anil Juter­am. "We are work­ing as a team for the de­vel­op­ment of the re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties and its peo­ple."