RHON­DOR DOWLAT

The lar­ce­ny of ca­bles at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s Cal­i­for­nia Boost­er Pump, which has left sev­er­al ar­eas with­out a wa­ter sup­ply since Thurs­day, is not be­ing la­belled as sab­o­tage but lar­ce­ny and ma­li­cious dam­age caused by al­leged scrap iron and cop­per thieves.

This was the ini­tial take by Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

“Wa­ter sup­ply to the area was im­pact­ed. We have no ev­i­dence that this is sab­o­tage but this is con­sis­tent with oth­er such acts re­cent­ly by scrap iron crim­i­nals who con­tin­ue to ter­rorise the coun­try,” Gon­za­les said dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day morn­ing, af­ter a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia showed the dam­age to the site, in­clud­ing where ca­bles were cut and steel sheet cov­ers for drains were miss­ing.

At the time, Gon­za­les did not have an es­ti­mate of the cost of the dam­age or what it would cost to re­store the boost­er sta­tion to full op­er­a­tion.

WASA, in a re­lease, con­firmed that the boost­er sta­tion was dis­abled af­ter the elec­tri­cal ca­bles were stolen.

The au­thor­i­ty strong­ly con­demned “these sense­less acts of lar­ce­ny and van­dal­ism against its in­fra­struc­ture that are de­signed to pro­vide cus­tomers with a wa­ter ser­vice.”

The ex­tent of the dam­age at the boost­er sta­tion, lo­cat­ed along Phoenix Park Road, Point Lisas, was be­ing as­sessed, WASA not­ed. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the au­thor­i­ty, pre­lim­i­nary re­ports in­di­cat­ed stolen and dam­aged elec­tri­cal wiring and equip­ment, as well as stolen met­al sheets.

“The au­thor­i­ty has ad­just­ed op­er­a­tions on its dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem, there­by pre­vent­ing any dis­rup­tion in ser­vice to cus­tomers in the Cal­i­for­nia area,” WASA as­sured.

Mem­bers of the pub­lic are now be­ing en­cour­aged to re­port all acts of theft, van­dal­ism or sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty ob­served at the Au­thor­i­ty’s in­stal­la­tions to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Au­thor­i­ty’s Cus­tomer Call Cen­tre toll free at 800-4420/4426.