No water, plenty tears

Instead of shopping for fruit and provisions, they were busy staging a protest.

The residents’ grouse? They had been without pipe-borne water for three weeks and were urging the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) to help them.

Councillor for the area Shankar Teelucksingh said residents were at their wits’ end as they had no water to conduct daily household activities such as washing wares, washing clothes and using the toilet. He said that residents of Point Coco in Granville have been paying for truck-borne water supplies for the past 21 days.

Sadly, the experience of these residents is not unique. Similar water problems have been experienced by residents in communities all over the country such as at some parts of Belmont and Cascade.

Despite this country’s relative wealth, despite its pretensions to seeking to attain “developed country” status, despite its sophisticated political and mercantile machinery, we are yet to perfect the water supply issue. Some would say this is a perversion of the deepest hue. For what is life without water? It matters not, as Works Minister Fitzgerald Hinds said in Parliament on Friday, that the problem is nothing new. In fact, that it is a longstanding feature of life across the country is simply unacceptable.

What is baffling is that the minister reports that the water levels in WASA reservoirs are now “above average.” So why is there a problem with supply at locations like Todds Road, Chatham, Lopinot, Penal, Moruga, St Barb’s (Laventille), Maracas and Las Cuevas? According to Hinds, it is estimated that 50 percent of WASA’s water supply is lost in leaking pipelines.

He challenged an Opposition claim to have supplied 73 percent of all homes. Still, he proposed using the Madamas River as a new source of water supply.

But adding more water to a leaky supply is not likely to solve the problem.

What is required — and what has long been required — is an upgrade and system redesign of the nation’s water grid. Old pipelines and facilities should have long been replaced on a phased basis. Which begs the question: why have they not been fixed? Opposition Leader Kamla Persad- Bissessar — who while in power presided over similar water problems in 2011, 2013, 2015 — has expressed dismay that some residents are paying $1,000 for a truck-load of water. The fee, she has observed, is illegal. The Opposition Leader, when in government, oversaw some infrastructure upgrades, but was the pace enough? Clearly not.

That said, the Government cannot now hide behind the tired old PNM vs UNC politics in order to avoid this issue. If there is a problem of supply, it must, as a matter of urgency, identify the causes and address the problem. It must also look into the Opposition Leader’s report that residents are being effectively taken advantage of. Not only must we suffer the indignity of no water, but we must then pay for it? Is WASA doing its best in discharging its remit? Has the State-enterprise model worked in this instance? There are far too many complaints and we are left feeling the matter has not been tackled at all.

What is the solution? What is needed to get the job done? An audit of WASA’s facilities and assets and the drawing up of a strategic plan that can be implemented nationally with the cooperation of the Ministry of Works and local government bodies should occur. A bipartisan approach to something as vital as water is also required. Until then, the population will continue to experience no water and plenty tears