Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Pe­nal/Debe res­i­dents have been promised restora­tion of their wa­ter sup­ply with­in 24 to 72 hours, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the Sen­ate, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said yes­ter­day.

He said there would be “sig­nif­i­cant re­lief” for af­fect­ed house­holds when he re­spond­ed to an ur­gent ques­tion from Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

Mark had asked what steps were be­ing tak­en by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to bring re­lief to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 28 com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by a wa­ter short­age which he said was ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the non-re­lease of fund­ing to the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC).

PDRC chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj said there was an ur­gent need of funds for the an­nu­al wa­ter truck­ing pro­gramme which ser­vices res­i­dents who are not WASA cus­tomers across 28 com­mu­ni­ties, as well as those who re­side at high points.

“With a to­tal al­lo­ca­tion of $700,000 dis­ag­gre­gat­ed in­to 14 ar­eas, (the funds) should have been re­leased since the start of the dry sea­son to com­mence on Jan­u­ary 15,” Ma­haraj said.

“The two-month de­lay is sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ing these res­i­dents as we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing one of the worst droughts. The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance must get his act in or­der to re­lease the funds now.”

How­ev­er, Dr Browne said WASA has in­creased pro­duc­tion at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant (CWTP) from 35 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter per day to 40 mil­lion to meet the sched­ules in the Pe­nal/Debe sup­ply zone.

He added that a sim­i­lar strat­e­gy was ap­plied at the Navet Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant (NWTP) from 18 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter per day to 20 mil­lion gal­lons and in 24 hours, four ar­eas will get a sup­ply.

“These ar­eas have a deficit be­tween sup­ply and de­mand cou­pled with dry sea­son con­di­tions at this time,” he ex­plained.

Browne re­mind­ed the pop­u­la­tion that WASA has im­ple­ment­ed a dry sea­son plan with new wa­ter sched­ules. He said there was con­tin­u­ous mon­i­tor­ing of wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty, rain­fall, stor­age lev­els and pro­duc­tion for ef­fec­tive dis­tri­b­u­tion to cus­tomers.

In ad­di­tion, there is the op­ti­mi­sa­tion of wa­ter pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion through mit­i­ga­tion mea­sures, in­ten­si­fi­ca­tion of wa­ter truck­ing in ar­eas af­fect­ed by wa­ter short­ages, wa­ter sched­ul­ing and mon­i­tor­ing as well as con­ser­va­tion mea­sures.