Richard Lord

En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh says con­trac­tor Ju­nior Sam­my (Jusam­co) com­mit­ted a breach which re­sult­ed in a rup­tured 48-inch steel Ca­roni North Trunk Main off the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way, near Trinci­ty Mall, on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.Singh spoke at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.The in­ci­dent hap­pened while the con­trac­tor was re­pair­ing and widen­ing a bridge as part of widen­ing of the high­way.He quot­ed Shereen Alexan­der, project en­gi­neer, as say­ing that "a spe­cif­ic zone was iden­ti­fied for the con­trac­tor to op­er­ate with­in but this area was breached."

Singh al­so said Alexan­der had said "WASA's pipeline mark­ers were vis­i­ble to all."He said an es­ti­mat­ed 300,000-400,000 WASA cus­tomers were af­fect­ed as their wa­ter sup­ply was dis­rupt­ed.

Emer­gency re­pair work start­ed late on Wednes­day and was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by mid­night last night. The main was rup­tured while the con­trac­tor, hired by the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture, was en­gaged in pil­ing work to re­con­struct and widen the Arou­ca Riv­er Bridge, which is part of the over­all Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way Ex­pan­sion Project.Singh said a truck-borne sup­ply was ini­ti­at­ed but pri­or­i­ty was be­ing giv­en to health in­sti­tu­tions, schools and spe­cial groups.

Asked what penal­ty was to be im­posed on the com­pa­ny for the in­ci­dent, Singh said: "In a case where there is this rup­ture, done out­side the re­mit of the con­tract and we have to mo­bilise and re­pair this and there is sig­nif­i­cant cost, the nor­mal prac­tice is to bill the Min­istry of Works as the client of the con­trac­tor and the min­istry will have its own re­trieval sys­tem to re­trieve the mon­ey ex­pend­ed."He said the cost of re­pair­ing the rup­tured main would be known by to­day.In re­sponse to an­oth­er ques­tion, Singh said: "It had to do with man­age­ment and su­per­vi­sion on the ground. On a job site a lot can go wrong if there isn't prop­er su­per­vi­sion."

WASA SAYS:A state­ment from WASA yes­ter­day said it ex­pect­ed full restora­tion of ser­vice to af­fect­ed ar­eas by to­day. Cus­tomers were ad­vised to man­age their wa­ter-use ef­fi­cient­ly.A lim­it­ed truck-borne wa­ter ser­vice is avail­able with pri­or­i­ty be­ing giv­en to health in­sti­tu­tions, spe­cial homes and schools.For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion cus­tomers are en­cour­aged to con­tact WASA's Cus­tomer Call Cen­tre toll free at 800 4420/4426.

Com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed:St Au­gus­tine, Curepe, Champs Fleurs, Mt D'Or, Farm Road, St Joseph, Pe­tit Bourg, Val­sayn South, Bam­boo, Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal, Aranguez, San Juan, El So­cor­ro, San­ta Cruz, Mor­vant, Barataria, Laven­tille, Beetham Gar­dens, Bel­mont, Port-of-Spain, Cas­cade, Co­corite and West­ern Main Road, St James.