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Friday, August 29, 2025

Rain brings some relief in waterless Woodland

by

730 days ago
20230830
Ian Ramlochan shows the two barrels of rain water he collected for his livestock yesterday.

Ian Ramlochan shows the two barrels of rain water he collected for his livestock yesterday.

INNIS FRANCIS

 RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

Wood­land res­i­dents yes­ter­day ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that wa­ter had not been re­stored in their com­mu­ni­ty and re­newed their calls for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to pro­vide a truck-borne sup­ply.

Ten­ant Trace, Ram­cha­ran Trace and Pluck Road, San Fran­cique were among the ar­eas still with­out a pipeborne sup­ply.

Rain yes­ter­day morn­ing pro­vid­ed some re­lief for the res­i­dents who were able to col­lect wa­ter for live­stock and do laun­dry af­ter al­most a week of scorch­ing heat.

Farmer Ian Ram­lochan blamed the swel­ter­ing tem­per­a­tures for the loss of ten goats. He said he was forced to sell ten more at low prices and is now left with on­ly 20 an­i­mals. 

“The past cou­ple of days were very hot. We have an­i­mals and some of them end up dy­ing in the heat from heat stroke and lack of wa­ter. We are not get­ting wa­ter from WASA and we had to sell away a num­ber of them,” h said.

Ram­lochan said he was able fill bar­rels with rain wa­ter for his live­stock but the qual­i­ty of the wa­ter was not suit­able for use. He said his high-bred Sanaan goats catch dis­eases quick­ly and have to drink pu­ri­fied wa­ter.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Shirley Har­riper­sad, said there were piles of dirty clothes in her home. 

 “It is hard for us. We have to take the clothes by my sis­ter in La Ro­maine to wash. I don’t know why we are pay­ing a bill, why?” she asked.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Ked­dy Ma­hadeo, who lived abroad for most of her life but moved to Trinidad 19 years ago, said she is fed up with the wa­ter short­ages.

“For years, this area doesn’t get wa­ter. It’s very dif­fi­cult be­cause my hus­band is not well and I need wa­ter to do every­thing,” she said.

In­grid Sookdeo com­plained about dif­fi­cul­ties with her bedrid­den hus­band. She said their tanks were low on wa­ter.

“If we could get wa­ter once per week or twice per week, we will be okay but we can­not stretch it to three weeks and a month with­out wa­ter. That is ex­treme,” she said.

Av­o­cat/San Fran­cique coun­cil­lor Dood­nath Mayrhoo said he re­ceived more than 50 calls yes­ter­day from res­i­dents who had no wa­ter.

“WASA has said they are look­ing at run­ning an eight-inch line from the M2 Ring Road along the cross­road to bring wa­ter to Wood­land but that is in the plan­ning stages so we look­ing at the next five or ten years. It is un­ac­cept­able that peo­ple are suf­fer­ing for a ba­sic thing like wa­ter,” he said.

Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has arranged for a meet­ing be­tween WASA of­fi­cials and res­i­dents for 5 pm on Fri­day at the San Fran­cique Hin­du School to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion and find so­lu­tions.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has de­nied Tan­coo’s claims that the gov­ern­ment is de­lib­er­ate­ly crip­pling WASA and play­ing wa­ter pol­i­tics by de­priv­ing cer­tain ar­eas.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, WASA’s Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Kelvin Ro­main said pipe borne wa­ter has been re­stored in some parts of Wood­land and truck borne wa­ter is be­ing arranged for res­i­dents in the high­er ar­eas of Ten­ant Trace. 

Un­der the ex­ist­ing sched­ule, res­i­dents of Syne Vil­lage, Gon­za­les Trace, and De Gannes Vil­lage, in­clud­ing Lily Trace and Gon­za­les Trace, start­ed re­ceiv­ing wa­ter yes­ter­day. Siparia Old Road will re­ceive to­mor­row and Fri­day and San Fran­cique over the week­end.


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