WASA cus­tomers in the North West dis­tricts of Trinidad can ex­pect im­proved wa­ter lev­els over the next six months, while Pe­nal and sur­round­ing ar­eas may see im­prove­ments in the next two to three months. There are al­so plans for a dra­mat­ic sup­ply im­prove­ment in To­ba­go to be­gin in two weeks, along with an ac­cel­er­at­ed leak and road restora­tion pro­gramme which starts next week.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les in­di­cat­ed this in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, while re­ply­ing to queries on the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and the wa­ter sup­ply from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

On new ini­tia­tives to se­cure wa­ter, Gon­za­les said WASA’s Strate­gic Plan in­cludes sta­bil­is­ing and im­prov­ing pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply to the pop­u­la­tion over the next three to five years and tar­get­ing com­mu­ni­ties with a wa­ter sched­ule un­der 24-hour sup­ply for three days.

“The aim is to elim­i­nate wa­ter sched­ules un­der 24/3 in the dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem as far as pos­si­ble, un­less unique cir­cum­stances in a par­tic­u­lar area that may make this ob­jec­tive im­pos­si­ble,” he said.

Among the ini­tia­tives:

• Im­ple­men­ta­tion of a Com­mu­ni­ty Wa­ter Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme (CWIP) by the min­istry and WASA, ad­dress­ing ser­vice de­liv­ery short­falls with­in com­mu­ni­ties re­ceiv­ing sup­ply of 24/2 and less.

• A sec­ond phase of this pro­gramme is about to be com­plet­ed. It’s so far pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ed close to 100,000 cit­i­zens, many of whom re­ceived pipe-borne wa­ter for the first time. Lopinot/La Pas­to­ra, Lala Ja, Bras­so Seco now have ac­cess to 24/7 wa­ter sup­ply.

• Among those ben­e­fit­ing un­der CWIP - 40,000 were from South and Cen­tral. A third phase start­ing soon is ex­pect­ed to im­pact sev­er­al thou­sand more cit­i­zens.

• De­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of com­pre­hen­sive Re­gion­al Wa­ter Sup­ply Im­prove­ment Pro­grammes for North-West, North-East, Cen­tral/ South Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Gon­za­les said the North West Wa­ter Sup­ply Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme was re­cent­ly launched and im­ple­men­ta­tion is ex­pect­ed to com­mence short­ly.

“Over the next six months, over 360,000 in the North West will see im­prove­ment in ser­vice lev­els. In two weeks, we’ll roll out the To­ba­go Wa­ter Sup­ply Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, where they’ll see a dra­mat­ic im­prove­ment in sup­ply, elim­i­nat­ing wa­ter sched­ules un­der 24/3.”

Gon­za­les said six months ago, be­fore ini­tia­tives be­gan, 34 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion re­ceived a 24/7 wa­ter sup­ply.

“So far, with suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion of these projects, we’ve now reached 40 per cent. I ex­pect with the start of re­gion­al plans - two weeks ago North West, two weeks from to­day To­ba­go, and I ex­pect Cen­tral, South and North East re­gion­al plans to be rolled out - I’m con­fi­dent that based on those plans, suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion and the ar­eas we’re tar­get­ing, near­ly 70 per cent or more of this pop­u­la­tion, for the first time...un­der a PNM Gov­ern­ment, will see an im­prove­ment with their wa­ter sup­ply,” he said.

Gon­za­les as­sured plans won’t dis­crim­i­nate against any area. He said he vis­it­ed ar­eas be­tween Pe­nal and Point Fortin last Fri­day and key de­ci­sions were tak­en to ac­cess ma­jor reser­voirs in Pe­nal, where­by “per­haps in the next two to three months” 20,000 cit­i­zens in Pe­nal ar­eas will see im­prove­ment in the wa­ter sup­ply.

“It doesn’t mat­ter if you live in East, West, North, South or To­ba­go, this Min­is­ter will not dis­crim­i­nate against the peo­ple of T&T,” Gon­za­les added.

Ac­cel­er­at­ed road restora­tion pro­gramme start­ing

The Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry and WASA will ramp up ef­forts with an ac­cel­er­at­ed leak re­pair and road restora­tion pro­gramme from next week, Gon­za­les added.

He said the com­bi­na­tion of aged pipelines, wa­ter sched­ul­ing and poor pres­sure man­age­ment has cre­at­ed a leak-prone pipeline net­work, which has neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed wa­ter sup­ply, par­tic­u­lar­ly to com­mu­ni­ties at high­er el­e­va­tions and at net­work ex­trem­i­ties.

“For the last six months, we’ve rec­ti­fied 13,000 leaks on WASA’s dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem. An ac­cel­er­at­ed leak re­pair and road restora­tion pro­gramme will com­mence next week in­volv­ing the use of 18-25 pri­vate con­trac­tors op­er­at­ing on a zon­al ba­sis, with the tar­get of elim­i­nat­ing the cur­rent back­log of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3,000 leaks by the end of Au­gust.”

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