The dam­age done to a key 48-inch wa­ter main run­ning near the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way rais­es sev­er­al ques­tions.The most im­me­di­ate is the need for clear un­der­stand­ing of how rou­tine road ex­pan­sion work by a gov­ern­ment con­trac­tor could lead to dam­age to a wa­ter main that sup­plies al­most half of the coun­try's pop­u­la­tion.

WASA's quick pub­lic re­la­tions re­sponse and vig­or­ous re­pairs are com­mend­able, but the scale of the dis­rup­tion points to larg­er in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues that the util­i­ty is still to ad­dress prop­er­ly. This week, the cost of re­pairs will be eval­u­at­ed and a bill hand­ed over from the Min­istry of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources to the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

But even if the con­trac­tor can be held re­spon­si­ble for the bro­ken pipeline, the sum won't ever re­cov­er the lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and gen­er­al in­con­ve­nience that the loss of wa­ter for sev­er­al days brought to cit­i­zens along the East-West Cor­ri­dor.

The in­ci­dent points to the need for greater re­dun­dan­cy in the plan­ning of WASA's wa­ter sup­ply sys­tems as well as the im­por­tance of de­vel­op­ing more catch­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion spots through­out the coun­try.There is a long­stand­ing need for WASA to as­sess the struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of its dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem and to craft a plan to re­place the un­nec­es­sar­i­ly waste­ful and rapid­ly de­te­ri­o­rat­ing pipelines laid more than six decades ago.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers