SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

In spite of the cash flow chal­lenges fac­ing the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), the au­thor­i­ty has in­ject­ed a stag­ger­ing $14.1 mil­lion in­vest­ment in­to the con­tro­ver­sial Beetham Gar­dens pipeline project which led to a fiery protest last month.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les un­der whose purview WASA falls, ad­mit­ted that this was the largest sum the au­thor­i­ty had ex­pend­ed in the last two years to en­sure the lives of hun­dreds af­fect­ed in the Port-of Spain South con­stituen­cy re­turn to nor­mal­cy.

Giv­ing a break­down of the fig­ures yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said, the au­thor­i­ty has al­ready spent $4.6 mil­lion since the project start­ed last Oc­to­ber.

“This was for rental of equip­ment, pur­chase of con­crete cylin­ders and pipelines.”

When the project comes to a close on Fri­day (Feb­ru­ary 18) WASA would have forked out an ad­di­tion­al $7.5 mil­lion.

“That would be to cov­er the re­main­ing cost of heavy equip­ment, re­me­di­al works and ma­te­ri­als such as road paving and these things.”

If WASA were to in­clude the $2 mil­lion spent on in­ter­nal labour, Gon­za­les said, the to­tal cost of the Beetham Gar­dens pipeline project would be in the vicin­i­ty of $14.1 mil­lion.

The project re­quired 47-inch di­am­e­ter con­crete sew­er pipelines to be in­stalled.

The au­thor­i­ty al­so in­stalled 624 feet of 44-inch di­am­e­ter duc­tile iron pipelines which had to be buried at depths rang­ing from 19 to 26 feet.

Gon­za­les said this was the largest sum WASA has spent on a project in months, as­sur­ing that the new pipeline sys­tem will elim­i­nate sew­er back­ups and dis­rup­tion and dis­com­fort to res­i­dents.

“WASA has not un­der­tak­en a project of such a mag­ni­tude in the last two years. It was a mas­sive project...the sew­er that en­dan­gered the lives of the peo­ple of Beetham. I con­sid­er it to be mon­ey well spent.”

Gon­za­les said Sat Sais Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed was the main con­trac­tor that pro­vid­ed ser­vices to WASA.

“They pro­vid­ed most of the equip­ment for WASA.”

In Jan­u­ary, an un­der­ground pipeline in the com­mu­ni­ty col­lapsed, caus­ing an over­flow of raw sew­er­age and an of­fen­sive smell in the com­mu­ni­ty.

The sew­er line al­so caused a 15-foot-wide sink­hole on Main Street in Beetham.

Out­raged by the in­ci­dent, res­i­dents stage a fiery protest which re­sult­ed in an ear­ly morn­ing traf­fic grid­lock on the Beetham High­way and Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

Po­lice had to in­ter­vene to quell the protest, which Gon­za­les said, was fu­elled by pol­i­tics.

He al­so dis­closed that the sew­er that was flow­ing in­to the streets was a re­sult of some el­e­ments in the Beetham com­mu­ni­ty tam­per­ing with pumps the au­thor­i­ty had rent­ed to un­der­take works.

The el­e­ments were al­so ac­cused of steal­ing diesel.

The theft of the diesel led to a break­down of the pumps to chan­nel sew­er out of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly sew­er start­ed spilling on­to the streets,” Gon­za­les said, which trig­gered the res­i­dents to stage a fiery protest.

In ad­di­tion to that, Gon­za­les said the project was faced with de­lays as a re­sult of a lack of ma­te­ri­als and a T&TEC em­ploy­ee be­ing in­jured on the job site two weeks ago.

WASA had to re­ceive an all-clear from the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty Au­thor­i­ty to re­sume work.

Gon­za­les thanked the res­i­dents for their co­op­er­a­tion, pa­tience and un­der­stand­ing.

He al­so praised WASA crews who worked “un­der se­vere chal­lenges to get the job done. The health risk they were ex­posed to, I must com­mend them for their ded­i­ca­tion and hard work. They must be ap­plaud­ed for go­ing be­yond the call. I know they missed their de­liv­ery time­lines which were out­side of their con­trol.”