‘Borderline terrorism’

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has de­scribed the theft of pow­er ca­bles at four Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) wells in To­ba­go as “bor­der­line do­mes­tic ter­ror­ism.”

The acts took place be­tween 4 pm on Fri­day and 2 am on Sat­ur­day, leav­ing 17 ar­eas on the is­land with­out a con­sis­tent wa­ter sup­ply.

The af­fect­ed ar­eas in­clude Crown Point, Canaan, Bon Ac­cord, Buc­coo, Black Rock, Low­lands, Lam­beau, Pa­tience Hill, Sig­nal Hill, Les Coteaux, Ply­mouth, Cul­lo­den, Sea View, Bloody Bay, Cas­tara, Lanse Four­mi and Par­latu­vi­er.

Au­gus­tine strong­ly con­demned the acts and called on po­lice to bring the per­pe­tra­tors to jus­tice.

“Let me be ab­solute­ly clear. This is not pet­ty theft. This is not mis­chief. This is a di­rect and de­lib­er­ate at­tack on es­sen­tial pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture,” he said in a Face­book post.

The ef­fect of the van­dal­ism is ex­ac­er­bat­ed by the in­flux of vis­i­tors for the East­er hol­i­days, par­tic­u­lar­ly to the Crown Point area.

Au­gus­tine said Crown Point, where the ma­jor­i­ty of ho­tels and guest­hous­es are lo­cat­ed, is re­liant on the Cour­land sup­ply, which is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the biggest dis­rup­tion.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Sec­re­tary of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Rocky Joe­field said he toured the af­fect­ed sites on Sat­ur­day with WASA of­fi­cials.

He said, “This is a very se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion, and we are treat­ing it with the ut­most ur­gency...Pre­lim­i­nary as­sess­ments in­di­cat­ed the fa­cil­i­ties have sus­tained ma­jor dam­age, which is cur­rent­ly be­ing eval­u­at­ed by the tech­ni­cal teams.”

Joe­field said ur­gent restora­tion works are un­der­way, and an in­ter­im truck-borne wa­ter sup­ply has been de­ployed to af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

Bri­an Williams, head of WASA To­ba­go re­gion, said the au­thor­i­ty is in­creas­ing its se­cu­ri­ty with the as­sis­tance of po­lice to se­cure the sites.

He said there were no CCTV cam­eras at the ar­eas hit by van­dals.

Williams added that the au­thor­i­ty is work­ing around the clock to re­store ser­vices as soon as pos­si­ble.

“Restora­tion works are on­go­ing, and the team has com­mit­ted to not stop­ping our ac­tiv­i­ties un­til they are com­plet­ed. It is ex­pect­ed in the next cou­ple of days all works will be com­plet­ed, but there will be a lag be­tween the com­ple­tion of the works and the restora­tion of sup­ply by na­ture, with the hy­draulics as­so­ci­at­ed with the trans­for­ma­tion is­sues and de­liv­ery of wa­ter.

“It is ex­pect by mid-week the ma­jor­i­ty of the ar­eas across To­ba­go, works will be com­plet­ed and ser­vices will be re­stored close to where they were.”

Kristy Ram­nar­ine, head of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions at WASA, said three trucks will be in op­er­a­tion and the pub­lic can call 639-6850 to re­quest the ser­vice.

Asked how easy it was for the pow­er ca­bles to be stolen, Ram­nar­ine said it was not a sim­ple op­er­a­tion.

“It may have looked easy, but it was def­i­nite­ly well-co­or­di­nat­ed,” she said.

“This was no ran­dom steal­ing of a line. We know the scrap-iron in­dus­try is vi­brant. You have peo­ple who steal brass fit­tings; they steal cop­per. It hap­pens in Trinidad as well.”

On the pre­lim­i­nary cost of the dam­age, WASA CEO Dain Ma­haraj said mit­i­ga­tion ef­forts are cur­rent­ly the main pri­or­i­ty. He said once that is com­plete, a fi­nan­cial as­sess­ment would be done.

For­mer mi­nor­i­ty leader Kelvon Mor­ris al­so con­demned the van­dal­ism as an at­tack against To­bag­o­ni­ans.

He called for the pro­tec­tion of these crit­i­cal fa­cil­i­ties through en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty, ex­pand­ed sur­veil­lance and the ap­pli­ca­tion of mod­ern dig­i­tal and cy­ber-se­cure sys­tems to pre­vent any re­cur­rence.

In an up­date around 7.37 pm last night, WASA said re­pairs at the Arnos Vale, Ba­co­let and Claude Noel High­way wells had been com­plet­ed.

It said works at the Bloody Bay were al­most fin­ished and the au­thor­i­ty is await­ing wa­ter qual­i­ty test re­sults at the Bloody Bay Tank be­fore the sys­tem can be re­turned to full ser­vice.

Asked about the claim of do­mes­tic ter­ror­ism, Se­nior Supt Rod­hill Kirk was hes­i­tant to clas­si­fy it as such, but said the ev­i­dence is lead­ing to that di­rec­tion.

“The po­lice are cur­rent­ly ac­tive­ly in pur­suit of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We won’t deem it as such al­though it has all the el­e­ments to sug­gest that is it.”

He said on com­ple­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the po­lice would con­sult the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to lay charges.

He said the po­lice is still prob­ing the mat­ter and look­ing at po­ten­tial sus­pects.

Hote­liers ‘very con­cerned’

To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion head Regi­nald MacLean said the wa­ter dis­rup­tion is cat­a­stroph­ic for hote­liers.

MacLean pre­vi­ous­ly told Guardian Me­dia the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor was reg­is­ter­ing over 80 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy for the peak pe­ri­od lead­ing up to East­er week­end.

How­ev­er, he said can­cel­la­tion of book­ings is a re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“Some of the calls I’m get­ting so far, peo­ple are very con­cerned and have start­ed or­der­ing wa­ter, but you know there aren’t enough wa­ter trucks in To­ba­go.

“The west­ern side of To­ba­go is gonna run out of wa­ter. There is no ifs about it. It is ei­ther an act of do­mes­tic ter­ror­ism or po­lit­i­cal — one of the two.”

MacLean said the in­come gen­er­at­ed dur­ing this pe­ri­od is crit­i­cal for hote­liers.

“Now is the time peo­ple are try­ing to make a lit­tle bit of mon­ey to keep the prop­er­ties open, now what you’ve done is gonna cause a prob­lem and peo­ple may have to shut down their prop­er­ties.”