RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As res­i­dents of the south­west­ern penin­su­la grap­ple with a se­vere wa­ter short­age, par­tic­u­lar­ly in coastal com­mu­ni­ties like Fullar­ton and Ica­cos, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has pledged to ad­dress the is­sue of il­le­gal wa­ter con­nec­tions and wa­ter theft through the in­stal­la­tion of teleme­try de­vices.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Gon­za­les ac­knowl­edged that the wa­ter cri­sis plagu­ing ar­eas in Ce­dros and Ica­cos was par­tial­ly caused by wa­ter theft, il­le­gal con­nec­tions and the use of spe­cialised pumps by some res­i­dents to ex­tract wa­ter from the main dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem.

He said these ac­tiv­i­ties have col­lec­tive­ly con­tributed to the er­rat­ic and un­re­li­able wa­ter sup­ply in these com­mu­ni­ties.

To com­bat these is­sues, Gon­za­les un­veiled a plan to in­stall teleme­try de­vices aimed at reg­u­lat­ing and mon­i­tor­ing wa­ter pres­sures, while iden­ti­fy­ing il­le­gal prac­tices to sta­bilise and en­hance wa­ter sup­plies.

“We will be in­stalling cer­tain teleme­try de­vices in or­der to reg­u­late and mon­i­tor pres­sures and to iden­ti­fy these il­le­gal prac­tices in or­der to sta­bilise and im­prove sup­plies there,” he added.

Gon­za­les said the ini­tia­tive aims to catch those re­spon­si­ble for il­le­gal wa­ter con­nec­tions and pre­vent fur­ther dis­rup­tions to the wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem.

He al­so an­nounced that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is ex­pect­ed to be­gin drilling a new ground­wa­ter well in Granville with­in one week.

He said this well will sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­crease the avail­abil­i­ty of wa­ter to serve the af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, of­fer­ing a more sus­tain­able so­lu­tion to the on­go­ing wa­ter cri­sis, he added.

The dire wa­ter short­age in the south­west­ern penin­su­la has had a pro­found im­pact on res­i­dents and busi­ness­es.

In an in­ter­view, Mary Lal­gee, the ad­min­is­tra­tive man­ag­er of St Quintin Es­tates, near Colum­bus Bay in Ce­dros, said 30 work­ers have been af­fect­ed be­cause of the wa­ter short­age.

Lal­gee op­er­ates a pro­cess­ing plant and sup­plies bak­eries on the penin­su­la with grat­ed co­conut.

How­ev­er, she said they have been un­able to op­er­ate due to the wa­ter short­age.

“This is the worst! The last time we got pipe-borne wa­ter was Au­gust 14. The em­ploy­ees are al­so af­fect­ed as they have no oth­er in­come. Please as­sist now, as this is a des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion,” Lal­gee plead­ed.

In Fullar­ton Vil­lage, res­i­dents shared sim­i­lar sto­ries of en­dur­ing a month-long wa­ter short­age.

Busi­ness­man Bas­deo Ram­cha­ran, who op­er­ates a par­lour and ice busi­ness, ex­plained that he and 13 fam­i­ly mem­bers have been un­able to work due to the cri­sis. The cost of pur­chas­ing wa­ter, at $150 per tank, has added a sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial bur­den, he said.

Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that the cor­po­ra­tion had at­tempt­ed to pro­vide truck-borne wa­ter to al­le­vi­ate the cri­sis.

How­ev­er, this tem­po­rary mea­sure has not re­solved the on­go­ing is­sues. Teelucks­ingh said ur­gent main­te­nance was need­ed at both the Granville Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant and the Chatham Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant.