As res­i­dents of Ben Lomond, Williamsville beat emp­ty buck­ets and wa­ter bot­tles in a rau­cous morn­ing protest yes­ter­day de­mand­ing wa­ter, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les ques­tioned what protest­ing would achieve. He said it was well known that T&T is fac­ing a 36 mil­lion gal­lon deficit of wa­ter caused by the harsh dry sea­son. The protest be­gan around 8 am along the Williamsville Main Road, where a $3 mil­lion pipeline re­place­ment project is un­der­way to im­prove the wa­ter sup­ply.

Res­i­dent Joy Ra­moutar said res­i­dents were fed up as the project was drag­ging on, leav­ing their homes shroud­ed in dust.

“We have been suf­fer­ing in Williamsville for far too long. We were giv­en emp­ty promis­es by WASA, and even when we call to beg for wa­ter, we have not been get­ting any. They al­so messed up the road run­ning pipes and nev­er fixed it. We are not get­ting through to the WASA Call Cen­tre. 

“This has been hap­pen­ing since 2022, and we are in 2024 now and have re­al­ly come to the end of our pa­tience,” Ra­moutar said. She added, “It’s dust in the morn­ing, dust in your pots, and no wa­ter, so enough is enough.” An­oth­er res­i­dent, Romero Abra­ham, said schools and busi­ness­es were af­fect­ed by the lack of wa­ter.  

“Nine­ty per cent of the prop­er­ties are busi­ness­es, and peo­ple can­not sus­tain their work­ers be­cause there is no wa­ter,” he said.

Abra­ham not­ed that Ben Lomond falls with­in three con­stituen­cies: Na­pari­ma, Princes Town, and Tabaquite so they are not left with­out prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

UNC coun­cil­lor Vin­cent Ra­goo, who rep­re­sents Ben Lomond/Hard­bar­gain/Williamsville, said in some places there has been no wa­ter for two years.

“We are not sup­posed to be beg­ging for wa­ter in 2024. I am ask­ing Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les to look in­to this,” he added. But Min­is­ter Gon­za­les said WASA had al­ready put all mea­sures in place to treat com­mu­ni­ties im­pact­ed by the wa­ter cri­sis. WASA has ramped up call cen­tre ser­vices and its wa­ter truck­ing. It has made known pub­licly the weath­er that we have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing over the past three months,” he said. The harsh dry sea­son and ex­treme heat re­sult­ed in a deficit of wa­ter. By protest­ing, what is it go­ing to achieve? Will it al­low WASA or the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties to make mag­ic?

“While they protest­ed, they had wa­ter in their taps. The pipeline re­place­ment is a project un­der the Com­mu­ni­ty Wa­ter Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme, which costs $3 mil­lion and is fund­ed by the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

In a state­ment, WASA ac­knowl­edged that it has ex­pe­ri­enced chal­lenges re­cent­ly main­tain­ing a con­sis­tent pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply to cus­tomers in Ben Lomond, Ec­clesville and Williamsville. It said to mit­i­gate the im­pact it has been pro­vid­ing a truck-borne sup­ply of wa­ter and is in­stalling one kilo­me­tre of 12-inch di­am­e­ter pipelines, from Williamsville junc­tion to Ec­clesville.