RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

There were protests for wa­ter in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties across south Trinidad yes­ter­day.

Since late last month, there have been dis­rup­tions in pipe-borne sup­ply to parts of south and cen­tral Trinidad caused by elec­tri­cal prob­lems at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment plant and the De­sal­cott de­sali­na­tion plant in Point Lisas.

Protests start­ed be­fore dawn in Bris­tol Vil­lage, Ma­yaro, where res­i­dents weld­ed a piece of iron across the road. A short dis­tance away, at Union Vil­lage, protest bar­ri­cades blazed. By 7 am, the protests had spread to Pe­nal Rock Road, Pluck Road, San Fran­cique, and Mun­gal Trace, Wood­land.

At Pluck Road res­i­dents strung up dozens of card­board plac­ards on fences to high­light their wa­ter de­mands. 

An­ju Gan­garam-Mun­gal ex­pressed her dis­may, say­ing: “We have been with­out wa­ter for six weeks now. Why is this hap­pen­ing? Why are we be­ing tar­get­ed? Why are we be­ing pe­nalised?”

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Rocky Ram­dass, added: “WASA dug up the road for con­nec­tions but they have yet to take any con­crete ac­tion. We are fed up with this sit­u­a­tion.”

Moohanie Ran­jit, of La For­tune, Wood­land, com­plained that there has not been a pipe-borne sup­ply to her street for three months.

“We have re­peat­ed­ly con­tact­ed WASA and they promised to open the valve but we still haven’t re­ceived any wa­ter,” she said.

Am­raz Ali Bo­cas, who al­so lives in Wood­land, said the wa­ter sup­ply is in­ad­e­quate: “It trick­les at the road lev­el. It can­not reach the tanks. If we call WASA, they are abu­sive be­cause they say Wood­land has wa­ter in the lines but this is not so.”

Pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Flood Ac­tion Group, Adesh Singh, said while some parts of Wood­land re­ceived a pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply, the pres­sure was so low that it was dif­fi­cult to even full a bar­rel.

In re­sponse to the wa­ter protests in his con­stituen­cy, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray blamed Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) for the un­re­solved en­gi­neer­ing chal­lenges that caused the short­ages.

“The San Pe­dro Boost­er has been a prob­lem­at­ic source, with WASA grap­pling with acute pres­sure com­pli­ca­tions, mak­ing it ar­du­ous to en­sure wa­ter reach­es Ma­yaro and its ad­join­ing com­mu­ni­ties,” he said.

Paray said he begged WASA to bol­ster the quan­ti­ty and reg­u­lar­i­ty of wa­ter truck­ing ser­vices to com­pen­sate for the dis­tri­b­u­tion chal­lenges but the re­sponse was poor.

To re­solve the wa­ter sup­ply prob­lems, he rec­om­mend­ed op­er­a­tional­is­ing of the Petro Guaya ser­vice, com­mis­sion­ing a new wa­ter treat­ment plant, draw­ing from the Or­toire Riv­er, and lay­ing down a nov­el 14-inch line from Navet to Table­land to fa­cil­i­tate un­in­ter­rupt­ed ac­cess to the ex­ist­ing line to Rio Claro.

“It’s time for the min­is­ter to dis­play res­olute com­mit­ment, en­sur­ing these projects tran­si­tion from mere pro­pos­als to tan­gi­ble so­lu­tions for the Ma­yaro Con­stituen­cy. Con­cur­rent­ly, I urge WASA to em­brace and im­ple­ment the wa­ter truck­ing plan I pro­posed over a year ago,” Paray said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les di­rect­ed ques­tions to of­fi­cials of T&TEC and WASA.

“WASA and T&TEC are more than ca­pa­ble of pro­vid­ing sound rea­sons,” he said. 

WASA’s chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Kelvin Ro­maine said most of the 167 res­i­dents of Wood­land re­ceived pipe-borne wa­ter, ex­cept for 12 house­holds who got truck-borne wa­ter. He said an in­ter-con­nec­tion valve was in­stalled to in­crease the lev­el of sup­ply.

With re­gard to Ma­yaro, Ro­maine said sup­ply will be re­stored with­in 24 hours.