Repairs to the ruptured 36-inch transmission pipeline at the Godineau Bridge along the Mosquito Creek will be completed on Friday and a water supply will be restored to all affected customers by weekend.
The assurance came from the Water and Sewerage Authority’s (WASA) Customer Care Director Natasha Andrews during a media conference at the site in South Oropouche.
Andrews said, “What we wanted to do is ensure that the people of Trinidad and Tobago are updated on the progress of the project and to see the latest works that have been completed already and as result, we will be on schedule to complete the work.
“The crews have been on site round the clock to ensure that a supply is restored to all residents before the weekend so persons can go about their day-to-day activities and celebrations.”
Thousands of customers were without a water supply following Tuesday’s incident. A steel rack supporting the pipeline collapsed into the river, causing the pipeline to rupture. WASA had initially indicated the repair exercise would take 36 hours.
Affected areas included Gulf View, Bel Air, Green Acres, La Romain, Woodland, San Francique, Avocat, South Oropouche, Union Hall, Duncan Village, Palmiste, Sunkist, Esperance, Debe, parts of Penal, Siparia, Quarry Village, Cocoyea, Pleasantville, Vistabella, Marabella and San Fernando.
Andrews yesterday said they have not yet determined what caused the failure.
“The investigation with that is still ongoing, our focus now is really to get the supply restored because that has to be the priority and, of course, some assessment has been done and that is ongoing until it can be determined,” Andrews added
As the project is still ongoing, she said the cost of the repairs had not yet been determined.
WASA’s operation’s director Shaira Ali said the authority has been doing maintenance work but there are areas which they will be improving on.
However, Ali assured that their crews and staff are assigned to their various locations nationwide and routine inspections are done.
“They do monitoring so any issue that we may encounter we will address as quickly and as urgently as possible,” she said.
Asked how the budget cutbacks were affecting their programme of works, Ali said they have employed several initiatives at the authority and they are working with their available resources.
Anand Jaggernath, head of Operations South Region, explained that 125 metres of pipes were redirected along the bridge, but the work was complex and entailed a lot of welding and fabrication.
“They are not standard joints because remember it was an emergency job at the point of failure. We had to divert the pipeline onto a fixed point which is the bridge. This bridge was the closest point that we could have accessed the pipeline from the northern side where the water is and convey it to the southern part of the bridge.”
He added that the repairs were being done with internal resources.
Wendell Etienne, acting senior manager corporate communications, also toured the site.