Water for none!

Now, this column is not intended as a criticism of WASA, the agency responsible for providing the nation with the only essential commodity we require. (We actually can live without electricity and telephones!) WASA knows what is needed to realise the hollow, corrupt promises of the “We Turn Now” regime and “Fix Me First” clowns who all sought office with “Water For All.” And if WASA knows what is required, the successive, corrupt and incompetent governments also know what is required.

You know what is required too. If you read this column, and remember what you read, you may find some of what follows to be familiar. I have written it before, but possibly because the crisis which is coming upon us now was not so serious before, you did not need to take me on. We are approaching a situation where there may soon be mass dislocations of people leaving communities because government cannot deliver water to them. Schools are going to be closed and businesses are going to be shut down — because there will be no water supplied to them.

Now we know how government will react to these crises. They will, in the short term, hire hundreds of trucks with tanks, and send them in to all the communities. If you currently live in an area where you depend upon truck-borne water, you will know how difficult it is to even get through to WASA on the phone — far less to get a load of water from them.

The Government has already announced its longer-term plans to get water to us. They are going to drill more wells and build more dams. Neither of these initiatives, if ever implemented, will deliver any more water to anyone. Let me explain.

In the mid 1980s a study done by the World Bank found that 60 percent of the water produced by WASA was being wasted by WASA through major leaks and ruptures in WASA’s distribution mains. These very old mains are not only corroded and broken. They are also reduced in size by years of calcium deposits in the pipes. WASA has, in the Public Relations Department, sections of pipe cut from areas all over Trinidad. Pipes which were six inches or four inches in diameter have been reduced to two inches to one inch in size. These much “smaller” mains must supply water to communities which have grown considerably in size. As the mains get “smaller,” the pressure increases and the mains burst — wasting the water, causing landslips and damaging homes which do not have water in their taps.

So when, if ever, Government gets their new wells and dams on stream, all that will happen is that more water will be forced into rotting and clogged pipes, and more water will be wasted. You and I will not get an improved supply. When the notorious Desal plant came on stream there was no improvement in supply to any citizen of Trinidad.

Now consider this for a moment: If you were a poultry farmer, selling eggs, and sixty percent of the eggs produced always broke before you got them to your customers, what would you do? Would you invest your money in buying more chickens, or would you improve your delivery system to get the eggs already produced to your customers? This question is not as stupid as it sounds, for the astonishing truth is that our governments are investing in the chickens! By wasting money on Desal plants, wells and dams, they are doing nothing to get water to a dirty, hot and thirsty population.

The World Bank study of the 1980s — which exposed the sixty percent wastage through the WASA mains — was done as a prelude to a World Bank loan for the replacement of the clogged and broken mains. The designs for a new distribution system were in progress, and tenders were about to be invited to lay the new mains. Then the NAR was voted out of office, and the new PNM government suspended the project — so that they could “study” it further. Four years later, when the PNM was beginning to realise that the new mains were absolutely necessary, the PNM put the matter back on the front burner.

But the PNM was voted out of office late in 1995. The UNC government should have implemented the mains replacement programme. But, it was “We Turn Now” with a vengeance! Possibly they considered that a World Bank Project would have constraints to the exploitation of “We Turn Now,” so they shelved the project and invested in their new “chickens” — the Desal Plant. Now that this project is before the courts, I must be careful what I say.

Had the mains replacement project been implemented fifteen years ago, the supply of water to the people would have increased by sixty percent as if by magic. No new dams, no new well, no Desal Plant, no jail for people — just a country becoming “first world” in a real and meaningful way.

So, if you have no water in your home, or your children’s schools, or your business place, don’t let anyone tell you about the “Dry Season.” If the coming protests turn violent and police shoot protestors, do not blame the dry season.

The water crisis is the direct result of the ignorance of the PNM and the avarice of the UNC. We will suffer the crisis they have brought upon us. Will we also vote one or the other of these embarrassments back into office? The decision is you