SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD and SHAS­TRI BOODAN

One week af­ter Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte vowed that the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) was do­ing all it could to en­sure cit­i­zens have a pipe-borne sup­ply of wa­ter, re­ports of pour­ing in of dry taps and dirty wa­ter.

In Cal­cut­ta, Freeport, Kayleigh Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia about two weeks ago, res­i­dents start­ed get­ting dis­coloured wa­ter in their taps.

She said the is­sue is on­go­ing and every day her hopes that clean, clear wa­ter will be found flow­ing from the taps, are dashed.

“Every day when it comes, it is like that, it went since yes­ter­day morn­ing and came to­day around 10 am,” Mo­hammed said.

She said when­ev­er the wa­ter does come clear, it is of­ten at very low pres­sure, mak­ing it im­pos­si­ble to fill tanks for stor­age.

“Most of the time, the on­ly thing it is good for is flush­ing toi­lets. It has been very hard try­ing to cope with this and pre­pare for COVID at the same time.”

In Quar­ry Vil­lage, Siparia, res­i­dents say they have had no wa­ter for the past 16 days.

A res­i­dent, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said this is­sue is not new and nu­mer­ous re­ports have been made to WASA and the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) over the years with­out any re­sponse.

“The sit­u­a­tion per­sists, 16 days ago we got pipe-borne wa­ter for two days, since then we have got­ten no wa­ter,  we are strug­gling to stretch the stor­age sup­ply we have in tanks,” the res­i­dent said.

Asked if they re­quest truck borne sup­plies, the res­i­dent replied, “The last re­quest made some time ago and we got no re­sponse from WASA. So we have stopped beg­ging.”

Last week, Le Hunte said WASA was mov­ing around its sup­ply to en­sure that all cit­i­zens can get the pipe-borne sup­ply that they need dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. He said the au­thor­i­ty’s wa­ter pro­duc­tion had been ramped up and it’s truck borne sup­ply was al­so in­creased.

Sev­er­al ques­tions were sent to Le Hunte via What­sApp yes­ter­day af­ter­noon for com­ment but we re­ceived no re­sponse.

Mean­while, res­i­dents in Cen­tral Trinidad said they have no choice but to use dirty well wa­ter to wash their hands and drink. Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty of Ker­na­han Trace, Chin Chin Road, Cunu­pia where vil­lagers said they have been with­out pipe borne wa­ter for the past three years.

They re­ly on an er­rat­ic sup­ply of truck-borne wa­ter from WASA while some parts of the com­mu­ni­ty get a sup­ply for a few hours dur­ing one day of the week.

Res­i­dents said they were be­ing forced to spend $1,200 for a tank of wa­ter from a pri­vate trans­port con­trac­tor es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the dry sea­son.

Six­ty-six-year-old pen­sion­er An­n­marie Dasi­ley said she had no choice but to fetch a pail of wa­ter from a well at the bot­tom of the hill.

Coun­cil­lor for the Las Lo­mas/San Rafael area Bal­mat­tie Gosyne, on the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said Brazil Vil­lage and Parts of Las Lo­mas are al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing wa­ter woes.