Since the ten­der age of five, Doonath Ram­goolam be­gan vis­it­ing the dam at Clarke Road, Pe­nal, which once ser­viced the now-de­funct Petrotrin. The now-80-year-old pen­sion­er was left shocked yes­ter­day by what he saw—the wa­ter had al­most dis­ap­peared due to the harsh dry sea­son. 

“I com­ing here as a lil boy from the age of four years nev­er see this wa­ter dry in this pond at all,” he lament­ed. 

Sim­i­lar oc­cur­rences are tak­ing place at WASA reser­voirs around the coun­try. On Mon­day, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty ac­ti­vat­ed sev­er­al mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures to ad­dress the wor­ry­ing­ly low wa­ter lev­els caused by a very harsh and hot dry sea­son. Some of the mea­sures in­clude the rerout­ing of wa­ter sup­ply from some ar­eas to oth­ers and a re­vi­sion of the sup­ply sched­ule. 

Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj claimed yes­ter­day that the re­gion was one of those bad­ly im­pact­ed. He said it was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing what he de­scribed as a wa­ter cri­sis.

“I would de­clare it a dis­as­ter. It is a cri­sis now. It is a loom­ing health cri­sis be­cause there are homes with­out wa­ter for ba­sic hy­gien­ic re­quire­ments, for cook­ing, to wash clothes for chil­dren to go to school, and there­fore this is now a cri­sis,” said Ma­haraj.

He said the area was un­der a one-in-nine wa­ter sched­ule, mean­ing it would re­ceive a sup­ply one out of every nine days. He claimed peo­ple were ac­tu­al­ly re­ceiv­ing wa­ter every 21 days or longer, in some cas­es. Ma­haraj sug­gest­ed that WASA cap­i­talise on the nat­ur­al springs with­in the Moru­ga/Pe­nal dis­trict.

“This area is an area where the wa­ter ta­ble is high, start­ing from Moru­ga, Hag­gard Trace, to this area through the Pla­tinique Projects. There are a lot of springs, and there­fore, in terms of good man­age­ment, we should have cap­i­talised on hav­ing wa­ter wells and re­ten­tion ponds. It will help with flood­ing, which will be very soon up­on us, and in the case of a wa­ter deficit,” he added. Ma­haraj al­so sug­gest­ed that WASA con­sid­er ex­tract­ing wa­ter from the Pointe-a-Pierre dam and oth­er ar­eas to ser­vice the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion. 

Ma­haraj said the cor­po­ra­tion’s coun­cil moved a mo­tion yes­ter­day call­ing for an in­crease in its bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion to pro­vide wa­ter trucks for res­i­dents. 

Mean­while, hy­dro­pon­ic farmer Tickaram Har­riper­sad of Julien Branch Trace, Rochard Road, said he lost 40,000 heads of let­tuce worth over $200,000 due to the heat and short­age of wa­ter.

Har­riper­sad said there is a nat­ur­al spring a short dis­tance away from his home, and about four or five more in the area. He called on WASA to make use of them. 

“The harsh dry sea­son treat­ing me very bad be­cause is wa­ter I main­ly us­ing. The pond has been dried. I treat my wa­ter my­self. I buy chlo­rine by the gal­lon, treat the wa­ter, and us it with hy­dro­pon­ics be­cause hy­dro­pon­ics needs clean wa­ter. And it have nat­ur­al wa­ter right here that we could get. They could dig a wa­ter well, and even sup­ply the vil­lage and it will be use­ful to me as well,” said Har­riper­sad. 

As com­plaints about the lack of wa­ter con­tin­ued in the south­land, pupils of the St Clement Vedic School in Ste Madeleine were sent home ear­ly yes­ter­day be­cause there was no wa­ter at the school.  

Guardian Me­dia was told that the tanks had wa­ter, but the pump stopped work­ing.