Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

De­spite con­fir­ma­tion from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) that re­pairs to its rup­tured 48-inch con­crete main at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant were com­plet­ed on Fri­day, there are still sev­er­al ar­eas around the coun­try with­out a sup­ply.

Res­i­dents from ar­eas such as Bel­mont and St Barbs have gone al­most one week with­out be­ing able to cook, wash or bathe.

While wa­ter be­gan trick­ling in the taps of oth­er ar­eas across north Trinidad from Fri­day evening, res­i­dents of the St Fran­cois Val­ley Road area in Bel­mont said they were irate af­ter feel­ing mis­led by the Au­thor­i­ty.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, one res­i­dent of Cum­ber­batch Street, Bel­mont, Wen­dell De Fre­itas said, “The peo­ple of this dis­trict in the St Fran­cois Val­ley Road, Bel­mont, have been with­out wa­ter since Wednes­day. I have two tanks and they are emp­ty right now. I have no wa­ter to flush my toi­lets.

“We want to know some­thing. When are we get­ting wa­ter? We were told we’re get­ting by Fri­day. This is Mon­day. There’s no wa­ter.”

De Fre­itas said he tried con­tact­ing WASA and was told the is­sue will be rec­ti­fied soon.

He even reached out to the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­try Com­mis­sion (RIC) and they told him to con­tact the au­thor­i­ty him­self.

Sim­i­lar­ly, oth­er res­i­dents of St Fran­cois Val­ley Road said they are up­set be­cause they have not even been pro­vid­ed with a small truck-borne sup­ply of wa­ter.

Al­so speak­ing to Guardia Me­dia out­side her Bel­mont home yes­ter­day, Delia Al­leyne said she and oth­er res­i­dents were be­ing told by WASA that if they want­ed wa­ter they would have to pay for it.

Al­leyne said, “A small truck does not have more than 800 gal­lons and you’re go­ing to pay $1,000 for 800 gal­lons from WASA. All the oth­er wa­ter com­pa­nies that do pri­vate wa­ter it’s even more. Some are ask­ing $1,200, $1,300 and $1,400.”

She said it was un­fair for cus­tomers to have to pay for a ser­vice they had not re­ceived in five days and still be ex­pect­ed to pay for a small truck sup­ply too.

Oth­er res­i­dents said they sim­ply could not af­ford to buy wa­ter.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to WASA for a re­sponse to the res­i­dents and was told the sup­ply of wa­ter would re­sume to­day.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er of WASA, Daniel Plen­ty said, “These ar­eas are ex­pect­ed to re­ceive a sup­ply overnight in­to to­mor­row.

“Note that though the ma­jor­i­ty of af­fect­ed ar­eas have had a re­stored sup­ply, there are some pock­ets at el­e­vat­ed ar­eas and ex­trem­i­ties of the sys­tem that are still ex­pe­ri­enc­ing low pres­sures or no sup­ply. The au­thor­i­ty is work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly to have a sup­ply re­turned to these ar­eas at the ear­li­est and is pro­vid­ing a truck sup­ply to such cus­tomers in the in­ter­im.”

When asked what the root cause of the rup­tured pipeline was, Plen­ty said in­ves­ti­ga­tions were still on­go­ing.

He added con­struc­tion would con­tin­ue this week as it was the au­thor­i­ty’s in­ten­tion to re­place and de­com­mis­sion the present pipeline for a more per­ma­nent struc­ture.

He ex­plained this would en­sure there was no re­peat of the lev­el of dis­rup­tion re­cent­ly ex­pe­ri­enced.

By late yes­ter­day evening, some res­i­dents of Cum­ber­batch Street, Bel­mont said they be­gan re­ceiv­ing wa­ter. How­ev­er, the sup­ply re­mained low.