An­na-Lisa Paul

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is owed more than $900 mil­lion by res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers. This was con­firmed by WASA’s act­ing chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Sher­land Shep­pard when he spoke with re­porters fol­low­ing a vis­it to WASA’s North Oropouche Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant in Va­len­cia yes­ter­day.

Shep­pard said as long as rev­enues re­main out­stand­ing, WASA will con­tin­ue to en­counter dif­fi­cul­ties to im­prove its op­er­a­tions. He urged cus­tomers in ar­rears to con­tact WASA to work out a pay­ment plan to get the debt down as he said they had held back from em­bark­ing on a dis­con­nec­tion dri­ve in def­er­ence to the on­go­ing cri­sis.

Al­though he ad­mit­ted WASA had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing chal­lenges in main­tain­ing a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply to sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in re­cent weeks, Shep­pard said: “The 2021 dry sea­son was not a re­peat of the pre­vi­ous two, as by June 2021 our reser­voirs on av­er­age were at 90 per cent ca­pac­i­ty and just about two months in­to the 2021 Wet Sea­son, all our reser­voirs are cur­rent­ly at full ca­pac­i­ty.”

How­ev­er, there had been an ab­nor­mal con­ver­gence of ma­jor op­er­a­tional is­sues over the last few weeks, which had neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed ser­vice sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, he said.

Op­er­a­tions Di­rec­tor, Shaira Ali said dif­fi­cul­ties ex­pe­ri­enced in sup­ply­ing com­mu­ni­ties in north Trinidad were caused by ex­treme weath­er con­di­tions.

Ex­ces­sive rain­fall presents chal­lenges to wa­ter pro­duc­tion at some of our sur­face wa­ter treat­ment plants,” she said.

Ali ex­plained that as rivers be­come flood­ed and tur­bid­i­ty in­creased, fa­cil­i­ties be­came in­op­er­a­ble since the wa­ter could not be prop­er­ly treat­ed.

“At this time, much of the prob­lems of tur­bid­i­ty af­fect­ing op­er­a­tions at our treat­ment plants are be­ing caused by ir­reg­u­lar ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place up­stream. These ac­tiv­i­ties in­clude quar­ry­ing, in­dis­crim­i­nate dump­ing and land clear­ing, among oth­ers,” she said.

“As such, when­ev­er there is heavy and con­sis­tent rain­fall, as was the case on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions in re­cent weeks, the op­er­a­tions at sev­er­al of our plants in the north­east are af­fect­ed. These in­clude North Oropouche, Tom­pire, Matu­ra, Aripo, Gua­napo, Quare, Cau­ra, Lu­en­go and Naran­jo, and Acono wa­ter treat­ment plants.”

An­oth­er ma­jor fac­tor that af­fect­ed the wa­ter sup­ply was the me­chan­i­cal prob­lems af­fect­ing key fa­cil­i­ties such as the El So­cor­ro Boost­er Sta­tion which ex­pe­ri­enced dis­rup­tions twice, af­fect­ing ar­eas in the north-west from Mor­vant to Co­corite.

Prob­lems at the Riv­er Es­tate pump­ing sta­tion af­fect­ed ser­vice to parts of Diego Mar­tin, while at the South Oropouche boost­er sta­tion, the sup­ply to large parts of south­west Trinidad was af­fect­ed. At the North Oropouche plant, a de­fec­tive pump and silt­ed in­take af­fect­ed the wa­ter sup­ply to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 110,000 res­i­dents.

Land­slides caused rup­tures along ma­jor trans­mis­sion pipelines. in­clud­ing the 16-inch pipeline at Syne Vil­lage, Pe­nal; a 6-inch pipeline at Hin­dus­tan Road, New Grant; the 24-inch pipeline at South­ern Main Road, Clax­ton Bay; and the 36-inch Navet Trunk Pipeline at Man­go Road, Tabaquite.

Ali said the amal­ga­ma­tion of all these is­sues had “oc­curred dur­ing Au­gust alone, which is an un­usu­al­ly high oc­cur­rence of ma­jor dis­rup­tions over such a short pe­ri­od.”

Com­pound­ing these prob­lems was the age of WASA’s pipelines and me­chan­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture which “have gone be­yond the pre­scribed life­time.”

Shep­pard said: “As such, the fre­quen­cy of fail­ures re­quir­ing the need for main­te­nance in­creas­es over time.”

The CEO ad­vised con­sumers not to buy truck-borne wa­ter from pri­vate con­trac­tors as WASA could not as­sure the qual­i­ty or safe­ty of the sup­ply.

“We are work­ing to­wards im­prov­ing our sys­tem so we can take all the calls and meet the needs of the pub­lic,” Shep­pard said.

WASA cur­rent­ly pro­vides a 24/7 wa­ter sup­ply to 24 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, while 60 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion re­ceives a 24-hour sup­ply four days a week.

Shep­pard said the util­i­ty has start­ed key wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment projects through the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties-fund­ed Na­tion­al Wa­ter Sta­bi­liza­tion and Im­prove­ment (NWSIP) and Com­mu­ni­ty Wa­ter In­vest­ment (CWIP) Pro­grammes for well re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and de­vel­op­ment, boost­er de­vel­op­ment, and pipeline in­stal­la­tion.

These should re­sult in ad­di­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply to Ma­yaro, Freeport, Las Lo­mas, San­gre Grande and Tamana. De­vel­op­ment and up­grades are be­ing done to boost­er sta­tions at Pitch Road in Mor­vant, Mendez Dri­ve in Champ Fleurs, Tamana and Brazil, while new dis­tri­b­u­tion pipelines are be­ing in­stalled at Pe­nal, Tabaquite, La Ro­maine, Bar­rack­pore, Mar­aval and To­co, as well as Canaan and Con­cor­dia in To­ba­go.