Policies, plastics and water

#1 Developing local water sources.

#2 Expanding the distribution system.

#3 Reducing leaks along the distribution system.

#4 Replacing old, damaged and corroded pipelines... and ...

#5 Institutional Strengthen-ing of the Water and Sewerage Authority. (No, I’ve no idea what is meant by that, either.)

However, when I read through a copy of the Minister’s speech to confirm the mains replacement programme is next-to-last on that list I was, to put it mildly, concerned.

This prompted me to dig through my filing cabinet to disinter an ageing document, “Council Paper No 3”, dated 27 January 1950, headed “Govern-ment Water Policy” that, to the best of my knowledge has not, like the National Environ-ment Policy, been revised – at least, not as yet.

This (Legislative) Council Paper documents the beginnings of WASA when Works and Hy-draulics won water and distributed it in rural areas and the Central Water Distribution Authority sold Works and Hy-draulics’ water to various borough Councils in need of more water than they could win for themselves.

As so often happens when more than one agency is responsible for supplying goods and services to the public, a fair amount of squabbling went on. To solve these disputes in which only the public suffered, WASA was to be the sole authority to win and distribute water and collect the water rate. What really grabbed my attention in this historic Note was a paragraph headed “Recommended order of priority for new waterworks” which began with (I’m sure you’ve guessed it?) “Renovation of Port-of-Spain Mains, Renovation of San Fernando Mains.”

The exact date of that note is January 27, 1950. And yet 56 years and two months later, in the Crowne Plaza hotel last month WASA CEO Errol Grimes publicly stated that some mains date back to 1850 and, as we’ve seen already, “replacing old, damaged and corroded pipelines” appears to be number four on the list of priorities in the $433,000,000 (four hundred and thirty three million dollars) Water Sector Modernisation Pro-gramme.

I suspect that “De-veloping Local Water Sources’ (#1) and “Ex-panding the distribution system” (#2) in the order listed by the Minister are much more fun, give politicians many more photo opportunities and win more votes than digging up roads to repair leaks and causing major traffic disruption through mains replacement programmes.

Older heads who re-member the horrors of LockJoint constructing the sewage system (readers aged 50 and under ask mama, papa, grandpa or grandma about that) and TELCO’s (now TSTT) Omelette-Making duct-laying in the 1970s may guess why Government is reluctant to let WASA tear up most, if not all the streets in downtown Port-of-Spain, San Fernando, and wherever else the mains are as old, or older than the octogenarians in our midst.

In her feature address at the launch of the Water Institute the Minister made reference to the revision of the National Environment Policy shortly to be laid in Parliament, saying the Revised Policy “will allow us to enhance the legislative framework to ensure the wise use of our water resources” (surely it’s wise to save water by replacing old, damaged and corroded mains?) adding, for example, that “Government may proceed with the Water Pollution Rules and Beverage Containers Bill”.

As one who spent a good half-hour checking Eric Partridge’s Usage and Abusage and Bill Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words that word “may” troubles me. My researches prove the word “may” means it’s not definite we will see Government proceeding with the Water Pollution Rules or the Beverage Containers Bill in the near future.

Nevertheless, in May last year this column pointed out that the Water Pollution Rules and the Plastics and Beverage Containers Bill had been waiting in the Parliamen-tary wings for the past four to five years. The following July we noted Government promising to bring the Beverage and Plastic Containers Bill to Parliament “very soon”.

There is no need for interminable wranglings, for long Parliamentary debates over the Water Pollution Rules because, as required by the EMA lawyers, they were, and will be laid in Parliament “for negative resolution”. The first, and last time those Rules were presented to our lawmakers they had to be put back on the Parliamentary list because the PM called General Elections less than 40 days after they were laid which meant there was no grace period (as required by law) for members of Parliament to object to any part they believed should have been amended before rules laid for negative resolution be-came law.

Those who have been watching the roundabouts and swings of both Water Pollution Rules and Plastics and Beverage Containers Bill as they make their tortuous way into our lawbooks wonder if they ever will. One fears there are powerful forces and vested interests holding back both bills.

What might these powerful forces, these vested interests be? Plain common sense tells you businessmen are dead set against having to pay to recover plastic sweet drink bottles and a multitude of other plastic containers.

As I wrote in this column on May 1, 2005 “All I know is what previous experience has taught me that, as they say in Yorkshire “Where there’s muck, there’s money”. And the muckier it is, the more money it makes. Which could account for the fact that no one seems to be in any hurry to put those Water Pollution Rules on the Parliamen-tary agenda because it could cost industry a pile of money to clean up the water they use before they discharge it back into our rivers and streams.

And paying to pollute, I suspect, goes for the Plastics and Beverage Containers Bill, too.

annehilton@rave-tt.net