Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the spo­radic rain­fall of the past few days is still far be­low the av­er­age lev­els for this time of year and he’s de­tailed a slew of wa­ter sec­tor projects, trash­ing UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath’s “lies” on wa­ter sec­tor is­sues.

And on the probe re­port on TSTT’s Oc­to­ber 2023 cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty breach which Padarath has al­so de­mand­ed, Gon­za­les said, “The UNC isn’t go­ing to bait me in­to over­reach­ing my min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and get in­volved in a process that has no role for the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter.

“As soon as the re­port and its find­ings are legal­ly com­plet­ed and for­mal­ly sub­mit­ted to me, then the pub­lic will be so in­formed.”

Af­ter Padarath’s claims on wa­ter is­sues at a UNC me­dia con­fer­ence on Wednes­day, Gon­za­les said, “The Princes Town MP set out once again to mis­in­form the me­dia and the pop­u­la­tion on sev­er­al is­sues re­lat­ed to the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry and the wa­ter sec­tor. It’s im­por­tant for me to cor­rect the record and de­bunk these lies and un­truths.

“It is a fact that wa­ter re­sources across the re­gion con­tin­ue to be neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed by a harsh 2024 dry sea­son and T&T is no ex­cep­tion. The spo­radic rain­fall of the past few days is still far be­low the av­er­age lev­els for this time of year and there is no change to the deficit of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 45 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter per day in the au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) over­all wa­ter pro­duc­tion.”

Gon­za­les added, “It pains me, there­fore, to know that some of our cit­i­zens are se­vere­ly af­fect­ed. In re­sponse, the min­istry and WASA have im­ple­ment­ed mea­sures to mit­i­gate the wa­ter cri­sis.”

He said this in­cludes the es­tab­lish­ment of a Cen­tral Com­mand Cen­tre to mon­i­tor pro­duc­tion and sup­ply chal­lenges on a 24-hour ba­sis; in­creased wa­ter truck­ing ca­pac­i­ty with ser­vice cen­tralised to the Com­mand Cen­tre with re­gion­al truck­ing sched­ules es­tab­lished; re­dis­tri­b­u­tion of sup­ply from more re­silient ar­eas to ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed ar­eas; in­crease in De­sal­cott’s ca­pac­i­ty to bol­ster south west and south cen­tral sup­ply; in­crease in Sev­en Seas de­sali­na­tion pro­duc­tion by an ad­di­tion­al 300,000 gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly.

Gon­za­les said, “Mr Padarath has know­ing­ly sought to claim own­er­ship of mea­sures al­ready be­ing im­ple­ment­ed by the au­thor­i­ty and min­istry. He al­so pre­tends to be un­aware of the many de­vel­op­men­tal and in­fra­struc­tur­al projects cur­rent­ly be­ing car­ried out by the au­thor­i­ty, all part of work start­ed some three years ago, in­clud­ing our com­mu­ni­ty-based and in­fra­struc­tur­al up­grade pro­gramme.

He added, “The UNC, through MP Padarath, has at­tempt­ed to dis­tract the pop­u­la­tion with mis­in­for­ma­tion and bla­tant lies. They’ve at­tempt­ed to fool T&T in­to be­liev­ing that the cur­rent dif­fi­cul­ties be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced aren’t re­lat­ed to con­di­tions be­yond our hu­man con­trol and bla­tant­ly pla­gia­rised projects and ini­tia­tives that they’re ful­ly aware are be­ing ex­e­cut­ed by the au­thor­i­ty to mit­i­gate the chal­lenge be­ing faced by our cit­i­zens.”

As at Fri­day, WASA stat­ed that the lev­els at the au­thor­i­ty’s four main im­pound­ing reser­voirs com­pared to the long-term av­er­age (LTA) were as fol­lows:

Reser­voir Cur­rent Lake Lev­el (%) LTA (%) Pro­duc­tion Deficit (MGD)

Are­na 26.13 (CLL %) 54.70 (LTA%) 30(PD-MGD)

Navet 29.88 (CLL%) 47.65 (LTA%) 4(PD -MGD)

Hol­lis 36.38 (CLL%) 43.28 (LTA%) 2(PD-MGD)

Hills­bor­ough 40.40 (CLL%) 57.10 (LTA%) 0.2 (PD-MGD)

Gon­za­les al­so cit­ed the fol­low­ing mea­sures:

• ↓WASA has re­duced the back­log of leaks that num­bered in the thou­sands three years ago. To­day, it stands at 309.

• ↓WASA’s well pro­gramme con­tributed an ad­di­tion­al 3 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly since 2023 com­mence­ment, im­prov­ing sup­ply to thou­sands in­clud­ing in Freeport, Aripo, Arou­ca and Ari­ma.

• ↓Com­mu­ni­ty Im­prove­ment pro­grammes com­plet­ed 50 pipeline in­stal­la­tions to­talling 36.1km, 15 new boost­er sta­tions con­struct­ed, three ground­wa­ter wells re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed.

• ↓One tank farm con­struct­ed in Paramin, one wa­ter treat­ment plant re­fur­bished, one new wa­ter treat­ment plant con­struct­ed in Lopinot

• ↓The 22 North West wa­ter sup­ply im­prove­ment pro­gramme in­cludes nine boost­er sta­tions re­fur­bished, 12 mains and pipeline re­place­ments com­plet­ed and one new well drilled.

• ↓To­ba­go’s 17 projects in­clude de­silt­ing of the Hills­bor­ough Dam, four pipeline in­stal­la­tions com­plet­ed to­talling 9.82km; eight new boost­ers com­plet­ed, three new wells and re­fur­bished one tank farm.

• ↓In­for­ma­tion will soon be shared on Na­tion­al Wa­ter Sec­tor Trans­for­ma­tion Pro­gramme projects to up­grade, man­age pro­duc­tion, trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­b­u­tion in­fra­struc­ture, re­duce wa­ter loss­es, and de­ploy in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies.