The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has con­demned the ac­tions of a con­trac­tor who has dis­charged ef­flu­ent in­to the Gua­napo Riv­er, which the au­thor­i­ty says pos­es a sig­nif­i­cant threat to wa­ter pro­duc­tion and the op­er­a­tions at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, WASA said it had be­come aware of “the ir­re­spon­si­ble ac­tions of a con­trac­tor en­gaged in quar­ry­ing ac­tiv­i­ty.”

It said the re­sul­tant ef­fect has led to a de­crease in wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty, as the cur­rent con­di­tions re­quire that the au­thor­i­ty “pu­ri­fy and sani­tise more to get less.”

It said the dis­charge of ef­flu­ent by the con­trac­tor in­to the Gua­napo Riv­er has re­sult­ed in the wa­ter­course turn­ing brown and pos­ing a threat to the plant, which serves nu­mer­ous com­mu­ni­ties in North, Cen­tral and South in Trinidad.

How­ev­er, WASA as­sured that the wa­ter sup­ply leav­ing the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant con­tin­ues to meet the high­est stan­dards of qual­i­ty and safe­ty.

It said it had “im­ple­ment­ed strin­gent mon­i­tor­ing and treat­ment pro­to­cols to en­sure that the wa­ter dis­trib­uted to cus­tomers re­mains safe for con­sump­tion and use.”

The au­thor­i­ty added that this in­ci­dent is not on­ly a vi­o­la­tion of en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions but al­so a reck­less act that chal­lenges its abil­i­ty to main­tain un­in­ter­rupt­ed wa­ter pro­duc­tion.

WASA said it is work­ing close­ly with rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies, in­clud­ing the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA), to in­ves­ti­gate this mat­ter and take all nec­es­sary ac­tions to end “this harm­ful ac­tiv­i­ty,” which it said is not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent.

The au­thor­i­ty ex­plained that in 2021, a sim­i­lar event oc­curred, which forced a dis­rup­tion in pro­duc­tion at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant and caused un­due in­con­ve­nience to thou­sands of cus­tomers served by the fa­cil­i­ty.

WASA said it is com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that such an event does not hap­pen again and will pur­sue every le­gal op­tion avail­able to hold those re­spon­si­ble ac­count­able.

The au­thor­i­ty has urged the pub­lic to re­port any sus­pi­cious or il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties that may threat­en wa­ter re­sources.