SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter al­most a month of raw sew­er­age flow­ing through a com­mu­ni­ty in Phillip­ine, south Trinidad, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has re­spond­ed to the res­i­dents’ cries for help.

On Tues­day, a crew from WASA re­moved the block­ages and cleared the sew­er sys­tem in the com­mu­ni­ty, which is a pri­vate de­vel­op­ment.

But while grate­ful for WASA’s as­sis­tance, res­i­dents of Sunkist De­vel­op­ment are ap­peal­ing for a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion. They said this is the sec­ond time this year that they have ex­pe­ri­enced what they termed a messy and un­san­i­tary sit­u­a­tion. On each oc­ca­sion, the sew­er­age flowed from a man­hole on­to the road.

While WASA as­sist­ed res­i­dents on both oc­ca­sions, al­beit af­ter sev­er­al ap­peals, the au­thor­i­ty had clear­ly stat­ed that the com­mu­ni­ty is a pri­vate de­vel­op­ment and the sew­er sys­tem is not un­der its con­trol.

Res­i­dent Rose­marie Boodoo said, “We are thank­ful for WASA for tem­porar­i­ly clear­ing the blocked sew­er sys­tem, but they need to recog­nise that they have to ser­vice and main­tain the area so that we do not con­stant­ly ex­pe­ri­ence a health haz­ard is­sue in the fu­ture.”

As WASA man­ages the wa­ter and sew­er­age sec­tor, Boodoo said the au­thor­i­ty needs to ad­vise res­i­dents on the next step.

“What we need is a per­ma­nent fix for this. We need WASA to give us a plan or come up with a plan to rec­ti­fy this is­sue so that it will be fixed per­ma­nent­ly, where WASA will main­tain it on a reg­u­lar ba­sis,” the res­i­dents said.

Boodoo com­plained that the di­lap­i­dat­ed sew­er tank had par­tial­ly col­lapsed some time ago. Not­ing that WASA has em­barked on a waste­water project for San Fer­nan­do and its en­vi­rons, Boodoo was hope­ful that this in­cludes her com­mu­ni­ty and oth­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar is­sues.