Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Thou­sands of res­i­dents from the north­ern and east­ern parts of Trinidad, as well as parts of To­ba­go, are with­out pipe-borne wa­ter af­ter the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) was forced to take 12 plants of­fline due to the ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions which dis­rupt­ed the plants’ op­er­a­tions.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, WASA chair­man Ravin­dra Nan­ga said while the weath­er in af­fect­ed ar­eas sub­sided had sub­sided, high riv­er lev­els posed a threat to re­pair op­er­a­tions.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, cus­tomers in the north, in the east, as well as To­ba­go, are cur­rent­ly with­out ser­vice due to the im­pact of the weath­er on our op­er­a­tions. Due to the high riv­er lev­els, our plants are down be­cause of the in­takes be­ing clogged,” he said.

Act­ing Di­rec­tor of Op­er­a­tions Shaira Ali said mul­ti­ple teams had been dis­patched for restora­tion works but progress was de­pen­dent on the weath­er con­di­tions.

Ali said WASA will pro­vide truck-borne wa­ter to the over 200,000 cus­tomers af­fect­ed and who may need of as­sis­tance.

“How­ev­er, the em­pha­sis will be on crit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions such as hos­pi­tals, schools, health cen­tres, et cetera,” she not­ed.

Cus­tomers in need of truck-borne wa­ter sup­ply are ad­vised to call 800-4420 or 800-4426.

Ali al­so up­dat­ed the pub­lic on the re­pairs at the North Oropouche Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, which she said is al­most com­plete­ly re­stored.

On Wednes­day, WASA an­nounced that a leak was dis­cov­ered on the 42-inch trans­mis­sion pipeline of the plant, which is lo­cat­ed in Va­len­cia. The North Oropouche Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant sup­plies over 100,000 res­i­dents on the East-West cor­ri­dor from San­gre Grande to Five Rivers, Arou­ca.

When asked about mea­sures WASA will be tak­en to avoid this re­peat­ed wa­ter prob­lem when flood­ing oc­curs, Nan­ga said the au­thor­i­ty has plans but the ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions make them im­prac­ti­cal.

“We are re­liant on what we re­fer to as sur­face wa­ter, and that hap­pens a lot in the east. As a board com­ing in, we have start­ed to pur­sue ground-source wa­ter and we are hope­ful that once those plants are up and run­ning, that the im­pact of the weath­er will be min­imised.

“We have ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture works be­ing un­der­tak­en next year, we have al­ready start­ed look­ing at wells, as well as the con­struc­tion of mod­u­lar wa­ter treat­ment plants in ar­eas like San­gre Grande. But right now, as we are re­liant on sur­face wa­ter, once we have flood con­di­tions like this and the riv­er lev­els rise, un­for­tu­nate­ly, our in­takes are im­pact­ed.

“Giv­en the na­ture of the weath­er we’ve been hav­ing, those fix­es are not prac­ti­cal at this point in time. How­ev­er, we are still pur­su­ing those,” he added.

Ar­eas af­fect­ed in Trinidad:

• ↓San­gre Grande and en­vi­rons,

• ↓Guaico Tamana Road,

• ↓To­co Road,

• ↓Man­zanil­la and en­vi­rons,

• ↓Cu­mu­to,

• ↓Waller­field,

• ↓Tumpuna Road,

• ↓Mal­abar phase I, III and IV,

• ↓Brazil,

• ↓La Hor­quet­ta,

• ↓Cara­po,

• ↓O’Meara (in­clu­sive of the in­dus­tri­al es­tate),

• ↓Mau­si­ca Road (north and south)

• ↓Mal­oney Gar­dens,

• ↓Five Rivers,

• ↓Bon Air West and the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

Af­fect­ed ar­eas in To­ba­go:

• ↓Hills­bor­ough West

• ↓High­lands Road

• ↓Char­lot­teville

Af­fect­ed plants in­clude:

• ↓The Quar­ry Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant in Va­len­cia,

• ↓The La Pas­to­ra/Mc­David in­takes in Lopinot,

• ↓The Gua­napo Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, which sup­plies Ari­ma

• ↓The Matu­ra and Tom­pire Wa­ter Treat­ment Plants, which sup­ply To­co and Matu­ra

• ↓The Blan­chisseuse Wa­ter Treat­ment Fa­cil­i­ty

• ↓La Fil­lette

• ↓Rin­con

• ↓Las Cuevas