Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Mayo res­i­dents are brac­ing for a wa­ter short­age af­ter Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed (TCL) tem­porar­i­ly shut off the sup­ply to the vil­lage. TCL gen­er­al man­ag­er Sat­nar­ine Bachew said none of the chemists at Mayo have re­port­ed for du­ty. He ex­plained that al­though some of the chemists at Clax­ton Bay had bro­ken the pick­et line, they are un­able to test the wa­ter qual­i­ty at Mayo be­cause the strik­ers had placed bar­ri­cades at the gate.

Bachew said TCL re­gret­ted the de­ci­sion but it would be dis­as­trous if poor qual­i­ty wa­ter was sent to the vil­lagers. "We have been sup­ply­ing the vil­lage for many years and we see that as part of our cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Since the strike, wa­ter was be­ing pumped to the vil­lagers, but be­cause there are no testers at the site, we are not in a po­si­tion to test the wa­ter every­day for chlo­rine lev­els. This is a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen," Bachew said.

He ex­plained that pro­duc­tion man­ag­er Kei­th Ramjits­ingh and quar­ry man­ag­er, Tara­dath Ramd­hanie were ver­bal­ly abused when they went to the plant to dis­con­nect the pump on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon. "They were blocked at the back gate," Bachew said. He said be­fore the dis­con­nec­tion TCL alert­ed all schools and of­fices in Mayo, as well as the MP for Tabaquite, Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan. The com­pa­ny al­so con­tact­ed the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and made a re­quest on be­half of the vil­lagers that wa­ter be dis­trib­uted.

"WASA now has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­crease sup­plies so that vil­lagers will not be out of wa­ter. WASA as­sured that they will al­so in­crease their sup­ply," he said. Vice-pres­i­dent of the OW­TU's TCL Branch, Ear­le Fa­hay, said TCL should make arrange­ments to have a tester from WASA as­sess the qual­i­ty of wa­ter in­stead of lock­ing off the sup­ply. He ac­cused the com­pa­ny of act­ing ma­li­cious­ly and at­tempt­ing to "weak­en the strug­gle."

Mayo res­i­dent Roger Adams said vil­lagers nev­er knew the wa­ter was test­ed be­fore dis­tri­b­u­tion. "TCL used to fil­ter it. I don't know what the prob­lem is but we the vil­lagers are be­ing vic­timised," he said An­oth­er vil­lager, Mar­vin Subero, said many peo­ple now have no choice but to pur­chase wa­ter. Navin Sir­ju said most res­i­dents are us­ing wa­ter from stor­age tanks but if the wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion is stopped for the du­ra­tion of the 90-day strike, they will be un­able to cope.

TCL has been sup­ply­ing wa­ter to Mayo and Clax­ton Bay for sev­er­al years. Through for­mal arrange­ments, a four-inch line be­tween Clax­ton Bay and Mayo dis­trib­utes wa­ter to the com­pa­ny's fence line com­mu­ni­ties for agri­cul­tur­al and do­mes­tic use.