Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

For months, res­i­dents of La Sei­va, Mar­aval, have been liv­ing with­out pipe-borne wa­ter, and forced to re­ly on riv­er and rain­wa­ter to sur­vive. Many now use the near­by riv­er to wash clothes, flush toi­lets, and clean their ve­hi­cles, as the com­mu­ni­ty’s taps re­main dry.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area this week, taxi dri­ver Ricky Joseph was seen wash­ing his car us­ing riv­er wa­ter.

“I’m wash­ing the car with riv­er wa­ter, and I’m suf­fer­ing from wa­ter re­al bad,” he said, echo­ing the frus­tra­tion of dozens of res­i­dents who live at up­per La Sei­va.

Pen­sion­er Harold Har­ry, who lives at Up­per La Sei­va Vil­lage, said he and his wife had gone over four months with­out a drop from the mains.

“We not get­ting no wa­ter,” he said.

“No­body come to say noth­ing. No­body tell we why. I have six tanks catch­ing rain­wa­ter, but that is just to make do.”

Har­ry said res­i­dents were still be­ing billed by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

“They say we have to pay,” he ex­plained.

“But I go­ing to find out why we are pay­ing for some­thing we not get­ting. This is bad.”

Res­i­dents blamed the is­sue on low wa­ter pres­sure, a prob­lem they say has per­sist­ed for years but has now wors­ened, leav­ing even homes that usu­al­ly re­ceive a steady sup­ply com­plete­ly dry. They are now de­pen­dent on the riv­er in the area and stored rain­wa­ter for all their dai­ly needs.

Some have in­stalled pumps in con­crete to pre­vent theft, but many, es­pe­cial­ly the el­der­ly, are strug­gling to cope.

Joy­ful­ness Graves, who has lived in La Sei­va for more than 50 years, said the sit­u­a­tion has be­come un­bear­able.

“Wa­ter is vi­tal,” she said.

“We have clothes to wash, toi­lets to flush, and chil­dren to send to school. You still have to go and pay your wa­ter bill every three months, and yet not a drop reach­ing us.”

Graves ex­plained that the riv­er wa­ter was not potable and on­ly good for flush­ing toi­lets.

She added, “At my age, my hands and legs not strong like be­fore. We thank God for the riv­er, but you can’t tote wa­ter for­ev­er. Go and have a heart, man. Do some­thing. Have a heart.”

De­spite re­peat­ed com­plaints, res­i­dents said no of­fi­cials have vis­it­ed or of­fered an ex­pla­na­tion for the pro­longed dis­rup­tion.

Many ques­tioned why wa­ter bills con­tin­ue to ar­rive even though they have not re­ceived ser­vice for months.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed WASA’s cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, Daniel Plen­ty, who, in a state­ment, said me­chan­i­cal is­sues at the plant in the area, com­pound­ed by re­cent out­ages from T&TEC, had af­fect­ed ser­vice to La Sei­va and oth­er sur­round­ing ar­eas.

The state­ment said the fa­cil­i­ty re­sumed full op­er­a­tions on Oc­to­ber 12 and ef­forts were un­der­way to re­store nor­mal sup­ply to all im­pact­ed house­holds.

Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment, most ar­eas of La Sei­va were al­ready re­ceiv­ing wa­ter, in­clud­ing res­i­dents near LP#20.

It said house­holds sit­u­at­ed at el­e­vat­ed sec­tions of the com­mu­ni­ty were ex­pect­ed to see wa­ter sup­ply re­turn overnight last night in­to this morn­ing.

The au­thor­i­ty apol­o­gised to cus­tomers for the in­con­ve­nience caused dur­ing the dis­rup­tion and as­sured them that steps were be­ing tak­en to pre­vent sim­i­lar oc­cur­rences in the fu­ture.