The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) says the ex­ist­ing Wa­ter Use Re­stric­tions and re­vised wa­ter sup­ply sched­ules that were im­ple­ment­ed in keep­ing with its Wa­ter Sup­ply Man­age­ment Plan dur­ing the 2019 Dry Sea­son, re­main in ef­fect.

WASA is­sued a state­ment Thurs­day say­ing that notwith­stand­ing the com­mence­ment of the 2019 Wet Sea­son as de­clared by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, the in­ter­mit­tent show­ers ex­pe­ri­enced thus far have had no dis­cern­able im­pact on the lev­els at WASA's four main im­pound­ing reser­voirs.

WASA says that all four reser­voirs - Hol­lis, Ca­roni Are­na, Navet and Hills­bor­ough - are be­low the long term av­er­ages and will re­quire con­sis­tent pe­ri­ods of rain­fall in the com­ing months, in or­der to achieve full stor­age in prepa­ra­tion for the 2020 Dry Sea­son.

WASA says it con­tin­ues to man­age avail­able wa­ter re­sources in­clud­ing max­imi­sa­tion of pro­duc­tion at sources not im­me­di­ate­ly im­pact­ed by rain­fall (in­clud­ing ground­wa­ter and de­sali­na­tion) and re­dis­tri­b­u­tion from sources.

WASA is advising that water-use restrictions will continue until further notice.

It is en­cour­ag­ing cus­tomers to con­tin­ue to em­ploy strict wa­ter con­ser­va­tion mea­sures in their dai­ly wa­ter use and as the Wet Sea­son pro­gress­es.

WASA an­nounced im­posed re­stric­tions on wa­ter us­age from Mon­day Jan­u­ary 28 un­til fur­ther no­tice.

The re­stric­tions in­clude the use of hosepipes and any sim­i­lar ap­pa­ra­tus for the pur­pose of, among oth­er things wa­ter­ing pri­vate gar­dens and or wash­ing pri­vate mo­tor cars.

Once au­then­ti­cat­ed doc­u­ments are pro­duced, au­tho­rised of­fi­cers of WASA have the au­thor­i­ty to en­ter any premis­es sup­plied with wa­ter at all rea­son­able hours in or­der to ex­am­ine if there is any waste or mis­use of such wa­ter.Any per­son who breach­es this pro­hi­bi­tion is li­able to a fine up­on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion.

Un­der the Act, WASA has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ad­min­is­ter­ing the sup­ply of wa­ter and pro­mot­ing the con­ser­va­tion and prop­er use of wa­ter re­sources. In par­tic­u­lar, the Act pro­vides for the fol­low­ing:

1. Up­on giv­ing no­tice to the pub­lic, the Au­thor­i­ty may pro­hib­it or re­strict the use of its wa­ter sup­plied through a hosepipe or sim­i­lar ap­pa­ra­tus for the pur­pose of wa­ter­ing gar­dens or wash­ing mo­tor ve­hi­cles. This in­cludes the use of sprin­klers, pres­sure wash­ers, as well as dec­o­ra­tive foun­tains, wa­ter­falls and oth­er out­door artis­tic fea­tures that utilise wa­ter.

WASA says water restrictions remain in place, despite the declaration of the start of the Rainy Season. Items like these are not permitted.

2. The Act places re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the own­er/oc­cu­pi­er of any premis­es to main­tain and keep any wa­ter fit­tings in good con­di­tion so that the wa­ter sup­plied to those premis­es will not be wast­ed, mis­used or un­du­ly con­sumed or con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed be­fore use.

3. The pro­hi­bi­tion of any own­er or oc­cu­pi­er of any premis­es sup­plied with wa­ter by the Au­thor­i­ty, to sup­ply or per­mit an­oth­er per­son to take any of that wa­ter for use in oth­er premis­es.

4. The pro­hi­bi­tion of any per­son from tak­ing, us­ing or di­vert­ing wa­ter from a reser­voir, wa­ter­course, con­duit, pipe or oth­er ap­pa­ra­tus be­long­ing to the Au­thor­i­ty.

5. The pro­hi­bi­tion of any per­son from will­ful­ly or neg­li­gent­ly op­er­at­ing or oth­er­wise in­ter­fer­ing with any valve or oth­er ap­pa­ra­tus be­long­ing to and utilised by the Au­thor­i­ty for sup­ply­ing wa­ter.

6. The pro­hi­bi­tion of any per­son from at­tach­ing any pipe or ap­pa­ra­tus or mak­ing any al­ter­ation to any pipe be­long­ing to the Au­thor­i­ty.