KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite wa­ter protests erupt­ing in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties in the past months, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les says that over 60 per cent of T&T en­joy a 24/7 sup­ply of pipe-borne wa­ter.

Ad­dress­ing a com­mis­sion­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the Guapo/Cap-de-Ville Pipeline Project at the Cap-de-Ville Gov­ern­ment School in Point Fortin yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said it in­creased from the pre­vi­ous 32 per cent.

“In 2020, the 24/7 na­tion­al cov­er­age was on­ly 32 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, and be­cause of the suc­cess that we have had over the last two to three years, I can now boast that over 60 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion in Trinidad & To­ba­go now en­joy a 24/7 lev­el of ser­vice. We are trend­ing pos­i­tive­ly,” Gon­za­les said.

Re­spond­ing to a vil­lager’s joke about the old “Wa­ter for All” slo­gan, Gon­za­les said the last time a min­is­ter said that, it was the biggest hoax ever played on the pop­u­la­tion. Dur­ing the Bas­deo Pan­day Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-gov­ern­ment era, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh launched a pro­gramme to in­crease the num­ber of cus­tomers re­ceiv­ing a re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply. Gon­za­les said it en­tailed lay­ing pipelines all over T&T, but not one buck­et of wa­ter flowed from some pipelines.

“It cre­at­ed the il­lu­sion that things were hap­pen­ing. Every­where you go, there were pipelines ly­ing all over. The cur­rent Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is on record for say­ing ‘on­ly pipe’ alone. They would just drop pipes all over the coun­try.”

How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment was op­er­at­ing dif­fer­ent­ly, re­al­is­ing that wa­ter sup­ply is not on­ly about pipe lay­ing but re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing failed in­fra­struc­ture, drilling new wells, im­prov­ing tech­nol­o­gy and au­toma­tion and chang­ing WASA’s man­age­ment sys­tem. 

Gon­za­les said the project will aid over 10,000 cit­i­zens around Point Fortin. Even La Brea res­i­dents will ben­e­fit. From a health per­spec­tive, he said the new eight-inch PVC line was safer than the old as­bestos-filled cast iron pipeline WASA re­moved. WASA boast­ed that it com­plet­ed the four-km project in un­der three months, set­ting new stan­dards.

Gon­za­les said there are even more im­prove­ments. The La For­tune Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant (LFWTP) in Point Fortin cur­rent­ly pro­duces 300,000 gal­lons of wa­ter per day, with a ca­pac­i­ty to de­liv­er 500,000 due to the span of the La For­tune dam. He said Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um has now de­cid­ed to hand over the Par­ry Lands dam to WASA, which will link to the La For­tune dam. WASA will up­grade the LFWTP to treat 5 mil­lion gal­lons by 2024.