SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is slow­ly wean­ing it­self from re­liance on de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter.

WASA pur­chas­es 40 mil­lion gal­lons of de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter a day from Point Lisas-based De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of T&T (De­sal­cott) at a cost of US$1 per cu­bic me­tre for res­i­den­tial, com­mer­cial and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers in cen­tral and south Trinidad. Point Fortin-based Sev­en Seas Wa­ter Cor­po­ra­tion al­so sup­plies WASA with 5.6 mil­lion gal­lons dai­ly at a rate of US$1.63 per cu­bic me­tre. Both con­tracts are “take or pay” and will end in 2028.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he is “not hap­py with the fact that there is an over-re­liance of do­mes­tic cus­tomers for de­sali­na­tion wa­ter.” He said the price WASA pays for de­sali­na­tion wa­ter for res­i­den­tial cus­tomers in­curs sig­nif­i­cant loss­es to the be­lea­guered State com­pa­ny.

As a re­sult, WASA has to wean its do­mes­tic cus­tomers off de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter.

“We can on­ly do that by WASA pro­duc­ing suf­fi­cient wa­ter to meet the de­mand of its do­mes­tic cus­tomers,” said Gon­za­les, who ad­mit­ted there is no plan to pur­chase De­sal­cott.

“That is cer­tain­ly not on the agen­da of the Gov­ern­ment.”

Al­though WASA is pur­chas­ing 45 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly from the de­sali­na­tion com­pa­nies, many com­mu­ni­ties are still suf­fer­ing for wa­ter, the min­is­ter said.

“Cer­tain­ly, we can­not con­tin­ue. The wa­ter sales agree­ments that have been en­tered in­to be­tween WASA and both de­sali­na­tion com­pa­nies have bank­rupt­ed WASA,” he added.

Ac­cord­ing to Gon­za­les, WASA pays $800 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly to both com­pa­nies, “That is what it is cost­ing. And it is part of WASA’s op­er­a­tional ex­pens­es.”

Gov­ern­ment spends $2 bil­lion an­nu­al­ly to keep WASA afloat.

The 2020 re­port of the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee ap­point­ed to re­view the op­er­a­tions of WASA stat­ed that “the cost of de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter cou­pled with the con­trac­tu­al re­quire­ment to pay for same in US dol­lars has crip­pled WASA and re­sult­ed in a di­rect strain on the trea­sury.”

Asked what will hap­pen when the con­tracts come to an end, Gon­za­les told the Sun­day Guardian, “It would be very dif­fi­cult to spec­u­late what would hap­pen at that point in time be­cause it would all de­pend on the suc­cess of the projects that WASA con­tin­ues to roll out.”

Fol­low­ing WASA’s an­nounce­ment of its 2021 trans­for­ma­tion plan to in­crease wa­ter pro­duc­tion, the au­thor­i­ty has been im­ple­ment­ing a num­ber of plans and projects, in­clud­ing a ro­bust well-de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme that will pro­duce more than ten mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly by the end of 2024.

Gon­za­les pre­dict­ed that by 2025 WASA would will more than 15 mil­lion gal­lons dai­ly and on­ly then “they would make an as­sess­ment as to how we go for­ward.”

Over the last year, the wa­ter com­pa­ny has drilled more than a dozen wells in cen­tral, south and east Trinidad. It costs WASA $3 mil­lion to drill one well which can pro­duce be­tween 200,000 to 600,000 gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly.

“Those wells have been pro­duc­ing over five mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter col­lec­tive­ly. Next year, an­oth­er 25 new wells will be drilled all over the coun­try to tack­le the wa­ter deficit,” the min­is­ter said.

He added that WASA has al­so been tap­ping in­to rivers na­tion­wide which would fur­ther in­crease pro­duc­tion.

“In ad­di­tion, WASA has be­gun to up­grade and con­struct new wa­ter treat­ment plants,” he said.

Un­der WASA’s Com­mu­ni­ty Wa­ter Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme (CWIP), 40 projects were suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed in un­der two years. This has pro­vid­ed 150,000 res­i­dents across T&T with first-time or im­proved lev­els of ser­vice.

WASA cur­rent­ly dis­trib­utes 240 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly to its cus­tomers.

Gon­za­les said the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank was ap­proached by the Gov­ern­ment to se­cure fund­ing, in part, for the Na­tion­al Wa­ter Sec­tor Trans­for­ma­tion Pro­gramme which will ad­dress the on­go­ing wa­ter sup­ply prob­lems. The ob­jec­tives of the pro­gramme are to im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

To achieve this, Gon­za­les said it would be nec­es­sary to ef­fec­tive­ly up­grade and man­age wa­ter pro­duc­tion, trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion as well as utilise in­no­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and da­ta-dri­ven man­age­ment sys­tems. This will elim­i­nate the need for Gov­ern­ment to meet op­er­a­tional ex­pen­di­tures and re­duce re­liance on de­sali­na­tion wa­ter.

Gon­za­les said, WASA is on a good tra­jec­to­ry and if it con­tin­ues along the path of in­stalling new wa­ter treat­ment plants, drilling wells, build­ing new boost­ers sta­tions and main­tain­ing its CWIP, “by the time the De­sal­cott con­tract comes to an end, the coun­try will not need 25 mil­lion gal­lons of de­sali­nat­ed wa­ter for the do­mes­tic grid.”

He said WASA has been push­ing to in­crease its wa­ter pro­duc­tion “to re­duce our re­liance on de­sali­na­tion wa­ter. That is the pro­gramme of the gov­ern­ment.”

“WASA is meet­ing its fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions to De­sal­cott. There are out­stand­ing li­a­bil­i­ties still. But by and large, WASA has been meet­ing its month­ly oblig­a­tions,” he added.

A com­mit­tee formed un­der the “wa­ter sales agree­ment” be­tween the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry and De­sal­cott has been meet­ing with both par­ties to ad­dress is­sues, con­cerns and dis­putes.

“I have seen a no­tice­able im­prove­ment in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the min­istry and De­sal­cott,” Gon­za­les said.