Carisa Lee

Cit­i­zens can ex­pect their dai­ly wa­ter sup­ply to be re­duced sig­nif­i­cant­ly soon as the Wa­ter and Sewage Au­thor­i­ty, in re­sponse to record low lev­els at its reser­voirs across the coun­try, plans to ra­tion its sup­ply na­tion­wide.

This was the word from WASA CEO Alan Poon King as he toured the Are­na Reser­voir in San Rafael to up­date the me­dia on the is­sues the au­thor­i­ty was fac­ing due to the low­er than nor­mal rain­fall lev­els so far this year.

“In cas­es where cus­tomers may be ac­cus­tomed to 24/7 sup­ply, that may be down to five days a week and five to three and so on. We amend as re­quired,” Poon King said.

Ac­cord­ing to Poon King, all four reser­voirs across the coun­try have been op­er­at­ing at a deficit amount­ing to 25 mil­lion gal­lons a day. He said WASA de­pends on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Metro­log­i­cal Ser­vice for rain­fall pro­jec­tions but in the last 16 days its fore­casts had not come to pass.

“For the month of Ju­ly we have been pro­duc­ing around 215 mil­lion gal­lons a day and where­as ide­al­ly, we want to be be­tween 240 or 243 gal­lons a day,” Poon King said.

At the Are­na Reser­voir, which sup­ports the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant and stores 10 bil­lion gal­lons, Poon King ad­mit­ted that ca­pac­i­ty was the low­est he had ever seen it. He said the last time it was that low ten years ago and the last time it was at ca­pac­i­ty was in 2018.

At this stage of the year, Poon King said the Hol­lis, Ca­roni Are­na, Navet and Hills­bor­ough reser­voirs should be at 50 to 60 per cent ca­pac­i­ty but cur­rent­ly they are all sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­low, with Hol­lis at 15 per cent and Hills­bor­ough at 40 per cent.

“Rough­ly 18 months that we’ve had not nor­mal rain­fall has re­sult­ed in all the stor­age lev­els at our reser­voirs…be­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly de­plet­ed,” Poon King said.

How­ev­er, he said the au­thor­i­ty has a goal and plans to have all four reser­voirs at ca­pac­i­ty by De­cem­ber 31, 2020. But in or­der to ac­com­plish this, wa­ter pro­duc­tion will be re­duced.

“At the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant we are do­ing 50 mil­lion gal­lons a day as com­pared to a ca­pac­i­ty of 75 mil­lion gal­lons a day,” he ex­plained.

He said what­ev­er vol­ume of stor­age is re­alised through rain­fall, WASA will com­pen­sate ac­cord­ing­ly.

Poon King said WASA had al­so stopped its dis­con­nec­tion dri­ve be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic but said pa­trols to iden­ti­fy er­rant cus­tomers who use hoses dur­ing the cur­rent re­stric­tions in force are un­der­way. He said the fee for those found guilty of this breach is $75.

The CEO said WASA is cur­rent­ly owed $800 mil­lion in ar­rears by cus­tomers, adding this is an area they will al­so have to work on.

“We do need to col­lect rates to pro­vide the ser­vice we need to,” Poon King said.

Cur­rent Reser­voir Lev­els:

Reser­voir*Cur­rent % ca­pac­i­ty*LTA % ca­pac­i­ty

Hol­lis* 15.98%*54.81%

Ca­roni Are­na*20.33%*58.58%

Navet*26.17%*57.23%

Hills­bor­ough*40.09%*53.55%

Cur­rent Plant Pro­duc­tion

Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant*Cur­rent Pro­duc­tion* Nor­mal Pro­duc­tion

Ca­roni*50 mgd*75 mgd

Norht Oropouche*16 mgd*23 mgd

Navet* 17 mgd*20 mgd

Hol­lis*4 mgd*8.4 mgd

Hills­bor­ough*1 mgd*1.5 mgd

Rain­fall lev­els for the year

Month* Ac­tu­al*Av­er­age*Notes

Jan*68 MM*80 MM

Feb*29 MM*50 MM

Mar* 5 MM* 32 MM* Top 10 dri­est on record

Apr*3.1 MM*59 MM*2nd dri­est on record

May* 38.9 MM*110 MM

Jun* 197.3 MM*251 MM

Jul*33.1 MM*251 MM

Year to date (End of June)

341.3 MM*582 MM