SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

For the past two weeks, res­i­dents of the re­mote vil­lage of Rin­con in Las Cuevas have been with­out a pipe-borne sup­ply of wa­ter.

The wa­ter they need to bathe, drink and cook ac­tu­al­ly comes from with­in their com­mu­ni­ty. The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) cre­at­ed a dam from one of Rin­con’s wa­ter­falls, which sup­plies fresh wa­ter di­rect­ly to the homes in the area.

But af­ter heavy rains two weeks ago, Rin­con res­i­dent Su­san Su­perville said pipes were sud­den­ly dry.

Sev­er­al days lat­er, when her tank sup­ply ran out, Su­perville had no choice but to re­turn to the riv­er that runs at the back of her house to re­plen­ish her sup­ply.

She said since then, she has car­ried buck­et af­ter buck­et, ex­ac­er­bat­ing her joint pains.

“The cold wa­ter from the riv­er caused me to get a cold in my legs so  I was glad I have WASA wa­ter so I don’t have to go in the riv­er. But now it have none, I go back to square one again…tote wa­ter to wash wares, to drink, to do every­thing, you have to tote wa­ter from the riv­er to get to do,” Su­perville said.

Rin­con res­i­dents al­so do not get cell phone re­cep­tion, leav­ing Su­perville un­able to call in her com­plaints.

Susan Superville collects a bucket of water from a river at the back of her home in Rincon, Las Cuevas, yesterday.

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

She has re­sort­ed to try­ing to in­form WASA work­ers she sees in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“A few days ago, a WASA van came in here, those who does fix things and they told my hus­band they go­ing and fix the wa­ter…I saw them again yes­ter­day, I told them again we have no wa­ter, they say yes, we com­ing to fix that and they didn’t come and fix any­thing.”

Su­perville took our news team on a 20-minute trek up the riv­er, to an area where she said WASA con­struct­ed a dam sev­er­al years ago.

The dam, which was full and over­flow­ing, sup­plies the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty with wa­ter. It is fed by sev­er­al of the many wa­ter­falls in Rin­con.

“This is nev­er dry, there is al­ways wa­ter in the dam. Look at it flow­ing right now, is like the wa­ter in our mouth and we can­not get it to drink,” Su­perville said.

She sent out an ap­peal to WASA to re­store the com­mu­ni­ty’s sup­ply, so she and her neigh­bours could once again live in rel­a­tive com­fort.

“We liv­ing here away from the city and is like no one takes us on at all…We must live with­out every­thing un­til they feel they have time to deal with us.”

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les who said he would look in­to the mat­ter.

Gon­za­les al­so promised he would pay a vis­it to Ri­con next week.