Rad­hi­ca De Sil­va

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In the wake of a pre-dawn protest launched by Ma­yaro res­i­dents over the crit­i­cal short­age of pipe-borne wa­ter, the Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has swift­ly re­spond­ed, of­fer­ing as­sur­ance of im­mi­nent re­lief for the be­lea­guered com­mu­ni­ty.

The demon­stra­tion be­gan at 3 am along Point Radix Street, Or­toire, and soon spread to St Joseph Road and Or­toire Hill Road. How­ev­er, po­lice rapid­ly in­ter­vened to pre­vent the es­ca­la­tion of ten­sions, re­sult­ing in the dis­per­sion of pro­tes­tors as dawn broke. The af­ter­math left rem­nants of smoul­der­ing de­bris on the streets.

Lin­da Gun­pat, who spoke to CNC3 re­porter Kellyann Lemessy, said the protest was the cul­mi­na­tion of res­i­dents' frus­tra­tion over a month-long wa­ter scarci­ty.

In an im­pas­sioned plea di­rect­ed at WASA, Gun­pat said: "I am ap­peal­ing to WASA this morn­ing for wa­ter. I am a res­i­dent for more than 40 years and we are al­ways hav­ing prob­lems with wa­ter."

She added: "This vil­lage has a lot of small chil­dren, and lots of peo­ple, we need wa­ter to wash, clean and cook. We are re­al­ly fed up with this."

Mean­while, MP for Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray echoed the res­i­dents' griev­ances about the per­sis­tent wa­ter sup­ply chal­lenges say­ing it was dis­rupt­ing lives dai­ly in the Or­toire Vil­lage Ma­yaro and the broad­er con­stituen­cy.

He said the area had last re­ceived pipe-borne wa­ter on Au­gust 2, un­der­scor­ing the grav­i­ty of the on­go­ing is­sue. De­spite as­sur­ances and con­tin­u­ous ef­forts, the prob­lems per­sist, lead­ing to mount­ing frus­tra­tions among the com­mu­ni­ty.

"I have con­sis­tent­ly raised con­cerns about the in­ad­e­quate wa­ter sup­ply to our con­stituen­cy over the past years. A re­cent meet­ing was fa­cil­i­tat­ed be­tween WASA and sev­er­al Vil­lage Coun­cils, dur­ing which com­mit­ments were made to ad­dress and rem­e­dy these long-stand­ing wa­ter sup­ply is­sues," Paray said.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the com­plex­i­ties of the sit­u­a­tion, Paray dis­closed that WASA of­fi­cials had en­gaged with the com­mu­ni­ty to iden­ti­fy short-term so­lu­tions but the sit­u­a­tion nev­er im­proved.

WASA, in re­sponse to the protest and com­mu­ni­ty out­cry, ac­knowl­edged the chal­lenges in the wa­ter sup­ply to parts of Ma­yaro.

WASA said the ro­ta­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply sched­ules were dis­rupt­ed by pres­sure-re­lat­ed is­sues em­a­nat­ing from the San Pe­dro Boost­er Sta­tion, im­pact­ing cus­tomers in the re­gion. As a mea­sure to al­le­vi­ate the cri­sis, WASA an­nounced an es­ca­lat­ed dis­tri­b­u­tion of truck-borne wa­ter, with plans to re­store the pipe-borne sup­ply on Wednes­day.

The Au­thor­i­ty re­leased a sched­ule out­lin­ing the phased restora­tion of wa­ter sup­ply to var­i­ous af­fect­ed ar­eas, in­clud­ing Mile End, Or­toire, and Co­conut Grove. The sched­ule ex­tends through Au­gust and will be­gin on Wednes­day.

Wa­ter restora­tion sched­ule

• Mile End, Or­toire, Co­conut Grove - 23 to 24 Au­gust

• Cas­cadoux, Ker­na­ham - 24 to 25 Au­gust

• Ra­bi­ta, Rest­house, Man­zanil­la, Plai­sance - 25 to 26 Au­gust

• Alex­is, Pan­han­dle, Solomon Street, Pe­ter Hill - 26 to 27 Au­gust

• St. Ann’s, Be­go­rat - 27 to 29 Au­gust

• Bal­a­ta, Mafek­ing, Cedar Grove - 29 to 30 Au­gust