Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in To­ba­go failed to stop the flow of wa­ter yes­ter­day morn­ing as thou­sands of Stink and Dut­ty pa­trons were sprayed with hoses.

Sec­re­tary of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Ricky Joe­field con­demned the wastage of wa­ter at Pa­rade Grounds, Ba­co­let, as the is­land ex­pe­ri­ences drought-like con­di­tions due to the ef­fects of El Niño.

A WASA me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day called for “ef­fi­cient and re­spon­si­ble” use of the pre­cious re­source dur­ing the car­ni­val from Oc­to­ber 30-No­vem­ber 1.

Over 60,000 vis­i­tors are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in To­ba­go for the an­nu­al fes­ti­val, dou­bling the pop­u­la­tion and the de­mand for wa­ter.

The re­stric­tions pro­hib­it the use of hoses and sim­i­lar equip­ment “for wa­ter­ing pri­vate gar­dens and/or wash­ing pri­vate mo­tor cars.”

WASA said the re­stric­tions in­clude sprin­klers and pres­sure wash­ers for sim­i­lar pur­pos­es.

It al­so called on all car­ni­val stake­hold­ers to con­serve wa­ter dur­ing their prepa­ra­tions, cel­e­bra­tions and clean-up.

Re­spond­ing to the de­vel­op­ment, a WASA of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the au­thor­i­ty was aware of the spray­ing of pa­trons at the par­ty.

Asked if the pro­mot­ers re­ceived an ex­emp­tion, the of­fi­cial said no, adding pro­mot­ers felt that the pro­hi­bi­tion did not ex­plic­it­ly state that pro­mot­ers were banned from us­ing hoses.

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, one of the pro­mot­ers said the re­stric­tions came out late on Thurs­day, not­ing the wheels were al­ready in mo­tion for the event.

“We were re­al­ly in full swing for the next morn­ing, and then we see it come out. We can’t do any­thing about that. We didn’t try to ig­nore it or be de­fen­sive — but what could you do at that point?

“It’s not like the re­stric­tions came out a week ago and we had the chance to piv­ot. It came as a sur­prise to us,” he said.

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath for a com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.