SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) will spend $1 bil­lion to con­struct wells and two small de­sal plants in un­served and un­der­served com­mu­ni­ties.

The project will be un­der­tak­en through the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) up­grade pro­gramme that Gov­ern­ment signed off on two years ago. This was dis­closed by Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les fol­low­ing a tour of the Acono Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant in St Joseph yes­ter­day with a team of WASA man­agers and its chair­man, Ravin­dra Nan­ga.

WASA will fo­cus on a re­fur­bish­ment ex­er­cise of its in­fra­struc­ture, main­ly its wa­ter treat­ment plants, the in­stal­la­tion of pipelines, drilling wells, and build­ing mi­ni de­sali­na­tion plants as part of the pro­gramme. Four years ago, Gon­za­les said, on­ly 32 per cent of T&T’s pop­u­la­tion had 24/7 ac­cess to wa­ter. To­day, that fig­ure has in­creased to 61 per cent.

“With this mas­sive in­vest­ment that we are go­ing to have un­der the IDB and the Pub­lic Sec­tor De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme, we can see close to 90 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion hav­ing a re­li­able and sus­tained im­prove­ment in their sup­ply,” Gon­za­les said.

Gon­za­les said ten­ders will be award­ed to kick­start ma­jor projects, which would in­clude the drilling of 20 wells in com­mu­ni­ties where sup­plies have not been re­li­able. He said that un­der the IDB pro­gramme, two new wa­ter treat­ment plants will be con­struct­ed. One will be in San­ta Cruz, which will sup­ply four mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly. The oth­er is in Golds­bor­ough, To­ba­go, which will pro­duce two mil­lion gal­lons.

Gon­za­les said he would not breach pro­to­cols or the IDB process.

“If it takes a year to fol­low our due dili­gence and do what we are sup­posed to do, the tax­pay­ers will ben­e­fit from us do­ing the right thing.”

The min­is­ter point­ed out they are eye­ing two ar­eas for the con­struc­tion of small de­sali­na­tion plants—Moru­ga and Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go, which have a wa­ter deficit. He said, based on analy­sis by WASA in Moru­ga, “We do not have any un­der­ground wells that we can drill to in­crease pro­duc­tion.” There is al­so no sur­face wa­ter source.

The same prob­lem ex­ists in Char­lot­teville. “Those are two ar­eas that we are present­ly look­ing at as pos­si­ble lo­ca­tions for the con­struc­tion of a small pack­age of de­sali­na­tion plants.”

Gon­za­les said Char­lot­teville could ben­e­fit from 300,000 gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly from the plant, while res­i­dents in Moru­ga would be pro­vid­ed with one mil­lion gal­lons a day.

He said WASA has a wa­ter sales agree­ment with the De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of TT (De­sal­cott) and Sev­en Seas Wa­ter Cor­po­ra­tion (SS­WC), where the plants are pri­vate­ly owned and the au­thor­i­ty pur­chas­es the wa­ter at a pre­mi­um rate. WASA pays De­sal­cott US$7 mil­lion every month for wa­ter. The au­thor­i­ty pur­chas­es de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter through two wa­ter sale agree­ments that are “take-or-pay con­tracts” with De­sal­cott and SS­WC.

The au­thor­i­ty has a con­trac­tu­al agree­ment with De­sal­cott un­til 2036. WASA has agreed to pay De­sal­cott US$1/cm for an out­put lev­el of 40 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly, of which 20 mil­lion go in­to the do­mes­tic grid.

This trans­lates in­to an an­nu­al pay­ment of US$84 mil­lion (over $500 mil­lion TT) to De­sal­cott.

SS­WC’s 17-year con­tract with WASA ends on Au­gust 31, 2027.

They sup­ply WASA with 5.6 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly and are paid US$16 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly.

WASA pro­duces 243 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly.