Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

This coun­try’s wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty de­serves se­ri­ous at­ten­tion and plan­ning due to deep­en­ing chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change and es­pe­cial­ly amid ex­pand­ing in­vest­ment and in­dus­try op­por­tu­ni­ties, says In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira.

“The cli­mate has changed, and our think­ing must change with it,” Vieira added yes­ter­day.

Vieira com­mend­ed Gov­ern­ment for recog­nis­ing the se­ri­ous­ness of the El Niño phe­nom­e­non and the chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change, “More im­por­tant­ly, for sig­nalling its in­ten­tion to act proac­tive­ly. The present Gov­ern­ment is right to recog­nise the se­ri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion and to be­gin prepar­ing for it. But it seems that the op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore us is larg­er than re­spond­ing to the im­me­di­ate threat,” he added.

Giv­en ex­pand­ing in­vest­ment and in­dus­try op­por­tu­ni­ties, such as the re­vival of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant and pro­posed large-scale AI da­ta cen­tre in Debe, Vieira said, food and wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty, green­er cities, pro­tect­ed wa­ter­sheds, cli­mate-re­silient in­fra­struc­ture and smarter de­vel­op­ment should no longer be re­gard­ed sim­ply as en­vi­ron­men­tal as­pi­ra­tions, but as in­vest­ments in T&T’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty.

“The time to make those in­vest­ments is be­fore the emer­gency, not dur­ing it...We shouldn’t wait un­til dis­as­ter hap­pens. We live in a rapid­ly chang­ing world - a very dif­fer­ent era. Much of our pub­lic dis­course fo­cus­es on crime, but wa­ter and food se­cu­ri­ty are is­sues that de­serve se­ri­ous at­ten­tion. What is re­quired is plan­ning. This isn’t a mat­ter of pol­i­tics; it is a mat­ter of pru­dence and risk man­age­ment. Cli­mate re­silience should not be­come an­oth­er are­na for po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sion. Gov­ern­ments change. Cli­mate risk does not.”

Vieira said much of T&T’s in­fra­struc­ture, drainage, wa­ter sys­tems, build­ings, and even as­sump­tions about rain­fall were de­vel­oped for the cli­mate of yes­ter­day.

He said T&T’s ap­proach to de­vel­op­ment has cre­at­ed con­di­tions for wa­ter short­ages and flood­ing.

“Wa­ter is our most pre­cious nat­ur­al re­source, yet we con­tin­ue squan­der­ing enor­mous quan­ti­ties, al­low­ing rain­fall to rush off roofs, across con­crete sur­faces, through drains, in­to the sea. At oth­er times we ex­pe­ri­ence flood­ing from pre­cise­ly the wa­ter that, months lat­er, we des­per­ate­ly wish we’d re­tained.”

Vieira said se­cur­ing T&T’s wa­ter must be a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty and rain­fall should be cap­tured as much as pos­si­ble, stored, cleaned (where nec­es­sary), and put to use. “This re­quires a dif­fer­ent con­cep­tion of our na­tion­al wa­ter sys­tem.”

Vieira had sev­er­al sug­ges­tions

* Rather than re­ly­ing pre­dom­i­nant­ly up­on con­ven­tion­al sur­face-wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture, de­vel­op a gen­uine­ly hy­brid wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem: reser­voirs and sur­face catch­ments; pro­tect­ed ground­wa­ter and arte­sian sources; rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing; waste­water recla­ma­tion where ap­pro­pri­ate; and de­sali­na­tion as com­po­nents of a di­ver­si­fied sup­ply.

* Ex­am­ine the Nether­lands ex­am­ples of “wa­ter squares” - func­tion­ing as pub­lic spaces in nor­mal weath­er but tem­porar­i­ly cap­tur­ing stormwa­ter dur­ing heavy rain­fall with de­signed spaces to col­lect wa­ter from roofs/streets, hold­ing it above/be­low ground.

* The Hol­lows in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Wild­flower Park and oth­er ap­pro­pri­ate pub­lic spaces could be sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly as­sessed for po­ten­tial to form part of an ur­ban stormwa­ter-re­ten­tion net­work.

* Rooftop sys­tems like the UK’s can be­come part of T&T’s wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture.

* New com­mer­cial/res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ments above an ap­pro­pri­ate size could pro­gres­sive­ly be re­quired to in­cor­po­rate rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and wa­ter-sen­si­tive de­sign.

* In­ves­ti­gate dis­trib­uted stor­age sys­tems and el­e­vat­ed wa­ter stor­age.

* Pro­tec­tion of na­tion­al wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture - forests, wa­ter­sheds, wet­lands, healthy soils, rivers, aquifers, man­grove buffers.

* Less con­crete, not more, in the treat­ment of wa­ter­cours­es. Where cir­cum­stances per­mit, nat­ur­al river­banks, veg­e­ta­tion, flood­plains and per­me­able sur­faces should be in­clud­ed in flood-man­age­ment strat­e­gy.