Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter 

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in cen­tral and south Trinidad af­fect­ed by a cut­back in pro­duc­tion at the Point Lisas De­sali­na­tion Plant, res­i­dents are call­ing on the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to do bet­ter.

In a bul­letin on Sun­day, the au­thor­i­ty ad­vised that parts of Cen­tral and South-West Trinidad will ex­pe­ri­ence low pres­sure or in some in­stances no wa­ter sup­ply due to a cut­back in pro­duc­tion at the de­sali­na­tion plant.

WASA ex­plained that in­stead of pro­duc­ing 40 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter per day, the De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go-owned plant was pro­duc­ing 36 mil­lion gal­lons due to “chem­i­cal dos­ing is­sues.”

Yes­ter­day, Siparia May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo com­plained that wa­ter dis­rup­tions were oc­cur­ring too of­ten.

“The plant just went down about a month ago for an up­grade. There are per­sons who have not even re­ceived a sup­ply of wa­ter since the plant came up af­ter the up­grade. Now, to cut back by 10 mil­lion gal­lons would mean that it will fur­ther push back the sched­ule for those per­sons who would not have re­ceived a pipe-borne to the San Fran­cique, Pluck Road, Wood­land and Salt Minie Trace. WASA needs to get its act to­geth­er.” 

The plant was shut down on No­vem­ber 11 for main­te­nance work and was back up on the 17.

While WASA in­di­cat­ed that res­i­dents could re­quest truck-borne wa­ter be­cause of the cut­back in pro­duc­tion, Mayrhoo said the au­thor­i­ty could not sup­ply every­one.

“It’s re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ing. I don’t know what is go­ing on with the de­sali­na­tion plant. That’s the life­line for wa­ter in cen­tral and south Trinidad and this can­not be hap­pen­ing so all the time. Some­thing needs to be done.”

In­dra Sookraj, a res­i­dent of Bun­see Trace, Pe­nal Rock Road, claimed the last time they re­ceived wa­ter was around Di­vali. 

She said re­cent­ly the de­sali­na­tion plant was shut down for a week for main­te­nance, and they hoped they would have re­ceived wa­ter when it re-start­ed.

“But it nev­er came. They said they opened wa­ter on the Pe­nal Rock Road but it has not reached up here. I don’t know what is hap­pen­ing.”

She said she may have to buy wa­ter soon.

“I on my last tank, a 400 gal­lon. All my oth­er tanks are out of wa­ter.  I might have to buy wa­ter by Wednes­day if it doesn’t come.” 

Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj said they have al­so re­ceived com­plaints from res­i­dents. How­ev­er, Cou­va-Tabaquite-Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Ryan Ram­pereasd said they had no com­plaints yes­ter­day.

WASA ad­vised that a lim­it­ed truck-borne ser­vice was avail­able and re­quests could be made through the WASA Ser­vices App avail­able via the Play Store or Ap­ple Store, the Cus­tomer Por­tal on WASA’s home page or WASA’s Cus­tomer Call Cen­tre toll-free at 800-4420/4426.