Hav­ing no wa­ter for three weeks may seem like a cri­sis to some but not for res­i­dents of Table­land who have not had wa­ter for four months.

The rain­wa­ter they have caught from the last rains have been used up and the near­by ponds which they use for live­stock, have run low.

Frus­trat­ed res­i­dents say they are tired of call­ing on WASA to beg for wa­ter.

Dou­bles ven­dor Dood­nath Sam­lal of Kissoon Av­enue, Table­land, said there are times he has been forced to shut down his busi­ness be­cause of the wa­ter short­age.

Even though he has 11 tanks, two of which are 1,000-gal­lon ca­pac­i­ty, Sam­lal said he is still with­out a sup­ply. He said a few weeks ago he pur­chased four tanks of wa­ter for $450 each but this has al­so run out.

“Imag­ine the last time we got wa­ter was in Jan­u­ary and our wa­ter bills are up to date. It is a rob­bery by WASA,” he said. His neigh­bours Nar­ine and Jag­daye Loork­hoor said they were plan­ning to hold prayers this Sat­ur­day but they had no wa­ter.

Hold­ing up emp­ty con­tain­ers, Jag­daye said her hus­band of­ten car­ries the con­tain­ers in his trunk and brings back wa­ter when­ev­er he could.

“Some­times he has to go for miles to get wa­ter as far as Rio Claro if the stand­pipes in Table­land are dry,” she said. At Man­ta­cool Road, Lennard Valdez said peo­ple were suf­fer­ing for wa­ter for more than two weeks.

Turn­ing on the stand­pipe, Valdez said some­times res­i­dents gath­er there once there is wa­ter. He said the wa­ter pres­sure is low and most peo­ple are un­able to fill up their tanks.

Sev­er­al farm­ers from Table­land said the wa­ter cri­sis was tak­ing a toll on their crops.

Poul­try pro­duc­er Sheikh Mo­hammed who rears 90,000 broil­er chick­ens said he de­pends on pond wa­ter for his live­stock. He added that he ran a wa­ter con­nec­tion to his home through a self help project and even though WASA gave him a res­i­den­tial con­nec­tion, he still did not have a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply. He said WASA nev­er gave him a con­nec­tion to his farm be­cause they could not pro­vide his quo­ta of 12,000 gal­lons per day.

“We de­pend on the ponds but the main pond has run so low that we have to make new con­nec­tions to the sec­ondary ponds,” he said.

His sons Fa­reed Mo­hammed and Alk­a­beer Mo­hammed used PVC pipes to pump wa­ter from the pond in­to tanks where it was treat­ed and then fed to the chick­ens.

Even as res­i­dents of South Trinidad suf­fered for wa­ter, a ma­jor dis­tri­b­u­tion line at Union Hall, San Fer­nan­do de­vel­oped a leak. The wa­ter sprayed more than 20 feet in the air. In an in­ter­view, a se­nior of­fi­cial at WASA said the leak will be re­paired im­me­di­ate­ly.

On Wednes­day, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Robert Le Hunte said WASA was faced with aged in­fra­struc­ture. How­ev­er, he said de­spite this the Au­thor­i­ty had em­barked on an ag­gres­sive cam­paign to stop leaks. He said any­one with in­for­ma­tion on a leak can con­tact WASA at 800-LEAKS.