Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Vent­ing their frus­tra­tion af­ter two weeks of no wa­ter in their taps, Ce­dros res­i­dents burned tyres in front of the Granville Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant yes­ter­day.

Armed with plac­ards, emp­ty buck­ets and bar­rels, res­i­dents shout­ed and pick­et­ed the Syfoo Trace en­trance in Granville that leads to the wa­ter treat­ment plant. They al­so burned tyres in front of the fa­cil­i­ty on Sat­ur­day evening.

The res­i­dents said they have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing wa­ter prob­lems for more than five years but have not re­ceived a pipe-borne sup­ply for the last two weeks and their tanks are now emp­ty.

Su­ru­j­dai Ram­per­sads­ingh, a pen­sion­er, com­plained: “We don’t have no wa­ter for about two weeks now, none. We used to get it in and out, but none, none at all, for about two weeks. So we not wash­ing no clothes, we not cook­ing no food.”

Ram­per­sads­ingh said res­i­dents have been forced to buy drink­ing wa­ter, but can­not af­ford to pur­chase wa­ter to cook or wash.

“I can’t af­ford a wa­ter tank, so I have a few bar­rels, I full the bar­rel when the wa­ter come,” she said.

“Bar­rel wa­ter fin­ish be­cause we us­ing it for two weeks now. The wa­ter fin­ish I on­ly eat­ing bread and Crix be­cause I have no wa­ter to cook no food.”

June Ram­nar­ine ap­pealed to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les to take charge and hold WASA ac­count­able.

“We have a wa­ter plant, we not even get­ting our own wa­ter. It goes some­where else, we tak­ing wa­ter from Chatham. Why is this? And Chatham wa­ter is stink. It smells bad­ly,” she claimed.

Ram­nar­ine, who re­called that the min­is­ter had promised to “fix WASA,” added: “No, no, Mr Gon­za­les this is not get­ting it right. Hold your man­agers and su­per­vi­sors ac­count­able. Don’t let the turn cork and them de­cide who will get wa­ter.”

She said res­i­dents would ac­cept a 48 to 72-hour cy­cle ro­ta­tion, but the cur­rent sup­ply sched­ule is un­ac­cept­able.

An­oth­er res­i­dent claimed there are five WASA leaks in the Ce­dros area and for the past three weeks WASA has been drilling a well in Granville, but they have no wa­ter.

“Mr Gon­za­les you see the peo­ple you have in charge, I think they should be fired. Fire them be­cause we in Ce­dros suf­fer­ing. I don’t know if it is be­cause we have a UNC coun­cil­lor here,” he said.

Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said there were com­mu­ni­ties in Ce­dros that have not had pipe-borne wa­ter for months and years

“They are suf­fer­ing, Ica­cos is suf­fer­ing, Fuller­ton is suf­fer­ing, and oth­er ar­eas are suf­fer­ing and WASA ad­min­is­tra­tion is not pro­vid­ing that ser­vice in terms of that prop­er dis­tri­b­u­tion, well re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, plant up­grade and oth­er re­pairs to the in­fra­struc­ture for prop­er wa­ter sup­ply,” he said.

Teelucks­ingh called on Gon­za­les, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert and Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to make WASA ac­count for the wa­ter short­ages in Ce­dros and en­vi­rons.

“To­day we move from a 24/7 (and) 12-hour sup­ply to a truck-borne buck­et bar­rel sup­ply which is in this time and age this gov­ern­ment should feel shame,” he said.