RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Even though Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion has re­turned to nor­mal fol­low­ing two re­cent elec­tri­cal dis­rup­tions at plants, res­i­dents in south and cen­tral Trinidad have dis­put­ed these claims, say­ing they are still grap­pling with se­vere wa­ter short­ages.

In the south­west­ern penin­su­la, op­er­a­tions at the St Quintin Co­conut Es­tate have come to a grind­ing halt due to the on­go­ing wa­ter sit­u­a­tion, leav­ing 30 work­ers in a state of un­cer­tain­ty and eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty.

Wood­land, a com­mu­ni­ty sched­uled to re­ceive wa­ter sup­ply yes­ter­day, was left parched as not a sin­gle drop flowed through taps in San Fran­cique, Pluck Road, and sur­round­ing ar­eas.

Mean­while, in Princes Town, Guardian Me­dia en­coun­tered Stan­ley Ma­habir as he filled buck­ets of wa­ter from a stand­pipe at Cipero Road, Bor­de Narve. Ma­habir, who lives in St Croix said he was frus­trat­ed by the lack of wa­ter.
“This is a man­age­ment is­sue. They are not re­leas­ing wa­ter to some peo­ple. It is a ter­ri­ble sit­u­a­tion. It has been two weeks now, and we have not re­ceived any wa­ter,” he said.

Ma­habir said the per­sis­tent wa­ter short­ages in the south­ern re­gion have sparked con­cerns among res­i­dents who de­pend on a con­sis­tent wa­ter sup­ply for their dai­ly needs, in­clud­ing agri­cul­ture, em­ploy­ment, and do­mes­tic use.

“Some­times I have to leave work to fill wa­ter. This is un­ac­cept­able,” Ma­habir said.

At San Fran­cique, a res­i­dent named Fish claimed they had not had wa­ter in 43 days on the hill­sides of Ten­ant Trace.

“Why can’t they put a boost­er pump? We need to high­light this be­cause my moth­er is blind and we don’t have wa­ter to care for her. This area has lots of sick, el­der­ly peo­ple here. They should lock off the wa­ter from oth­er ar­eas and send it here,” the res­i­dent said.

Last Sat­ur­day, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said wa­ter dis­tri­b­u­tion had nor­malised. He al­so said he found it “cu­ri­ous” that a WASA plant and the De­sali­na­tion plant had en­coun­tered elec­tri­cal is­sues, ul­ti­mate­ly dis­rupt­ing the pro­duc­tion and sup­ply of wa­ter.

But Fyz­abad MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe ex­pressed con­cern over Gon­za­les’ claims and not­ed that cer­tain ar­eas, in­clud­ing Mur­ray Trace, Siparia Old Road, and Quar­ry Vil­lage, con­tin­ue to grap­ple with wa­ter short­ages.
Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles al­so said sev­er­al ar­eas in his con­stituen­cy con­tin­ue to be hard-hit by wa­ter short­ages.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter Gon­za­les said Ce­dros is not ser­viced by the De­sali­na­tion plant or the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant. He said the drilling of the new well will com­mence next week­end.

“There are pock­ets of ar­eas still hav­ing some chal­lenges be­cause De­sal­cott is not yet back up to full pro­duc­tion. Hence, the rea­son I said 95 per cent. They are about three mil­lion gal­lons short be­cause of chal­lenges they con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence which pre­vents them from re­turn­ing to full pro­duc­tion. In those ar­eas, WASA is work­ing re­al­ly hard to sup­ply the im­pact­ed house­holds with a truck sup­ply,” Gon­za­les said.

He added that dis­tri­b­u­tion will nor­malise when the de­sali­na­tion plant is back up to 100 per cent ca­pac­i­ty.