KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With heavy rains bat­ter­ing their home and a leak­ing wa­ter line erod­ing their prop­er­ty, a Pointe-a-Pierre fam­i­ly said their home is on the verge of crum­bling down a hill.

John Men­doza and his fam­i­ly stood in the rain yes­ter­day as they mon­i­tored a land­slip be­tween their home and the neigh­bour at Plai­sance Park.

Men­doza told the T&T Guardian that the 15-inch Petrotrin wa­ter line which trans­fers wa­ter from Clax­ton Bay to the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery had sprung sev­er­al leaks in the past two years. De­spite sev­er­al com­plaints to Petrotrin, he said noth­ing much was done.

He said chil­dren were play­ing in the yard when the earth start­ed mov­ing, tak­ing with it co­conut and fig trees. In­side his house, the tiles the liv­ing room had be­gun to crack and lines ran from ceil­ing to floor in their bed­rooms.

“So far, all they did was to put a cap on the pipe and a lit­tle piece of thin sheet. The pipe is not leak­ing from one po­si­tion, it’s five or six dif­fer­ent leaks on­to the ground. That patch up that they did, can­not do any­thing re­al­ly.

“If any­thing is not done soon, the en­tire house will be gone. Just like the co­conut tree, just like the fig tree, every­thing will be gone. The next step is to con­tact the EMA and our at­tor­neys and see what le­gal ad­vice we can get as to what to do about the sit­u­a­tion.” Men­doza said.

Al­ready a shed at the neigh­bour’s house has be­gun slip­ping and the land­slip is just a few feet away from the ex­te­ri­or wall. Near their home, the wa­ter could be seen spray­ing from the pipe, caus­ing sev­er­al streams to run through both prop­er­ties.

Men­doza’s wife, Lisa Coop­er said when she got fed up of the sit­u­a­tion on Fri­day; she re­port­ed the prob­lem to Petrotrin po­lice.

“I can’t re­mem­ber the guy I spoke to but what he told me was not to let the me­dia be aware of it and I don’t need to let the pub­lic be aware of it. He said they would vis­it the site on Fri­day evening or Sat­ur­day morn­ing but up to now I have not seen them,” Coop­er said.

Men­doza’s house is un­fin­ished and he said the con­trac­tor stalled con­struc­tion be­cause of the leaks two years ago. He said all he wants is for Petrotrin to be fair. Ei­ther re­pair the line and the land­slip or pro­vide some­where safe for his fam­i­ly.

Act­ing cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at Petrotrin, George Comis­siong said that he was un­aware of the is­sue and will check on it to­day.