Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty plants in sev­er­al ar­eas have been re­stored af­ter re­cent ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions af­fect­ed op­er­a­tions, says Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath.

Padarath gave the up­date in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, in re­ply to queries from Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les (for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter).

Gon­za­les cit­ed re­ports of sev­er­al of WASA’s sur­face wa­ter treat­ment plants in North Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing af­fect­ed due to ad­verse weath­er con­di­tions.

Asked about re­lief ef­forts be­ing put in place for the cit­i­zens whose wa­ter sup­ply has been dis­rupt­ed as a re­sult, Padarath said it was “al­most dis­grace­ful if not shame­less” for for­mer min­is­ter Gon­za­les to file the ques­tion, “know­ing they did noth­ing to fix the prob­lem in the last ten years.”

He said at­ten­dants were on stand­by at each of the plants, some de­bris has been re­moved and plants in Cau­ra, Acono, La Pa­s­tores and Gua­napo were re­stored over the past 12 hours.

“The WASA Evo­lu­tion team plans to in­stall de­flec­tor plates and band screens to mit­i­gate the prob­lems and al­low the plants to op­er­ate un­der ad­verse con­di­tions,” Padarath added, claim­ing the rea­son the peo­ple suf­fered for the past 48 hours was due to “PNM in­ac­tion.”

Mean­while, Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans yes­ter­day paid trib­ute to for­mer Fyz­abad MP Dr Win­ston Williams, who died on May 29 at age 89. A minute’s si­lence was ob­served and trib­utes were paid to Williams’ con­tri­bu­tion to Fyz­abad, his pa­tri­o­tism and health­care.