The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is ad­vis­ing cus­tomers in parts of cen­tral and south-west Trinidad served by the Point Lisas De­sali­na­tion Plant, of an un­planned shut­down at the fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day due to a leak that has de­vel­oped on the fi­bre­glass clear­well sys­tem at the plant re­quir­ing emer­gency re­pairs.

WASA said that the De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DE­SAL­COTT), was yes­ter­day in the process of as­sess­ing the full ex­tent of the dam­age, af­ter-which an es­ti­mat­ed time­frame will be giv­en for the com­ple­tion nec­es­sary re­pair works.

WASA said it will pro­vide a sub­se­quent up­date, re­gard­ing the es­ti­mat­ed com­ple­tion time and restora­tion of nor­mal ser­vice, when this in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able.

De­sal­cott sup­plies 40 mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter dai­ly to WASA which is used to sup­ply the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, as well as aug­ment the sup­ply to ar­eas in cen­tral and south Trinidad.

WASA said this shut­down will di­rect­ly im­pact the pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply to com­mu­ni­ties in these ar­eas.

How­ev­er, it said that to mit­i­gate the ef­fects of this sup­ply short­fall on op­er­a­tions, it will im­ple­ment the fol­low­ing mea­sures for the du­ra­tion of the shut­down:

· In­creased pro­duc­tion and re-dis­tri­b­u­tion of sup­ply from the Ca­roni and Navet Wa­ter Treat­ment Plants;

· Im­ple­men­ta­tion of ad­just­ed sup­ply sched­ules;

· In­creased wa­ter truck­ing ca­pac­i­ty;

· Spe­cial em­pha­sis and arrange­ments to sup­ply schools, health in­sti­tu­tions, homes for aged and oth­er spe­cial needs or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Ar­eas to be af­fect­ed in­clude:

Ca­roni, St. He­le­na, Char­lieville, Ch­agua­nas, Cunu­pia, Cara­pichaima, Cou­va, Clax­ton Bay, Mara­bel­la, Gas­par­il­lo, San Fer­nan­do, Co­coyea, Union Hall, La Ro­maine, Wood­land, Palmiste, Phillip­ine, Ram­bert Vil­lage, South Oropouche, Fyz­abad, Av­o­cat, Siparia, Pe­nal, San Fran­cique, Rousil­lac, Aripero, La Brea.