Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is im­plor­ing res­i­dents of Spey­side and De­laford to con­serve wa­ter amid a harsh dry sea­son.

Wa­ter short­ages have been se­vere­ly af­fect­ing many ar­eas in To­ba­go East leav­ing res­i­dents and busi­ness­es frus­trat­ed.

Au­gus­tine ac­knowl­edged the sit­u­a­tion in a Face­book post yes­ter­day say­ing, “Wa­ter is life, and right now, it is un­der pres­sure.”

The Par­latu­vi­er/L’anse Four­mi/Spey­side rep­re­sen­ta­tive post­ed a pho­to of the King’s Bay Dam show­ing it ex­treme­ly low and filled with de­bris.

The dam, lo­cat­ed above King’s Bay Es­tate, was con­struct­ed decades ago af­ter the land was do­nat­ed by the late Amer­i­can fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant James B Rosen­wald.

Au­gus­tine said the fa­cil­i­ty has served Spey­side and De­laford well, but there is a ma­jor chal­lenge which went un­re­solved.

“There has nev­er been prop­er road ac­cess to the rear of the dam,” he said.

“This means it has nev­er been de­silt­ed since its con­struc­tion. Over time, this has sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced its catch­ment ca­pac­i­ty and over­all ef­fec­tive­ness.”

He said the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly is ad­dress­ing the sit­u­a­tion as drainage in­fra­struc­ture along the ac­cess route is cur­rent­ly un­der con­struc­tion, to be fol­lowed by road sur­fac­ing.

“More crit­i­cal­ly, we are treat­ing this as an emer­gency pri­or­i­ty: to con­struct the nec­es­sary ac­cess so that the dam can fi­nal­ly be de­silt­ed dur­ing this dry sea­son.”

In the in­ter­im, Au­gus­tine urged res­i­dents to do their part un­til re­lief comes.

“Every drop con­served now helps to sus­tain the sys­tem as we work to re­store and strength­en it. This is a mo­ment for col­lec­tive dis­ci­pline and for­ward ac­tion: fix­ing what was left un­done, and pro­tect­ing what we have for gen­er­a­tions to come.”

His ap­peal comes on the heels of a Guardian Me­dia re­port about com­plaints in Spey­side about dry taps for more than a week.

Res­i­dents and busi­ness­es say they are feel­ing the strain as it is se­vere­ly af­fect­ing their dai­ly lives and com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions.

Regi­nald Mac Lean, gen­er­al man­ag­er, Blue Wa­ters Inn, said his ho­tel was on the brink of shut­ting down be­fore he was forced to pay $11,000 for a truck-borne sup­ply.

He said the sit­u­a­tion was so dire that he had to strap a small tank on a pick-up truck and beg neigh­bours to have it filled.

Mac Lean has called for a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion as he does not want a sit­u­a­tion where res­i­dents and busi­ness­es fight for the lim­it­ed sup­ply.