Discoloured water reported in Central and South Trinidad amid Beetham pipeline repairs

Full wa­ter ser­vice is ex­pect­ed to be re­stored by 6 am on Mon­day, as the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) con­tin­ues per­ma­nent re­pair works on the 36-inch trans­mis­sion pipeline near Beetham Gar­dens.

WASA said re­ports of dis­coloured wa­ter in sev­er­al ar­eas across Cen­tral and South Trinidad are linked to the on­go­ing emer­gency works.

Ac­cord­ing to the Au­thor­i­ty, a sig­nif­i­cant leak de­vel­oped on the pipeline on Mon­day, April 6. 2026. While a tem­po­rary re­pair was car­ried out the same day to re­store ser­vice, per­ma­nent re­pairs are now nec­es­sary to en­sure the long-term safe­ty and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the sys­tem.

The works re­quired the tem­po­rary shut­down of the El So­cor­ro Boost­er Sta­tion and the El So­cor­ro High-Lift Sta­tion, which be­gan yes­ter­day at 6 am.

WASA said the dis­coloura­tion is tem­po­rary and is an ex­pect­ed re­sult of the work now un­der­way.

It ex­plained that dis­tur­bances with­in the pipeline net­work, caused by the shut­down and de­wa­ter­ing process, can stir up sed­i­ments that nor­mal­ly set­tle at the bot­tom of the pipelines, lead­ing to a change in wa­ter colour.

The Au­thor­i­ty as­sured cus­tomers that the wa­ter re­mains safe for use and that the is­sue af­fects on­ly the ap­pear­ance of the sup­ply, not its qual­i­ty or safe­ty.

WASA said it is ac­tive­ly con­duct­ing flush­ing ex­er­cis­es across all af­fect­ed ar­eas to help clear the sys­tem as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

Cus­tomers who no­tice dis­coloured wa­ter are be­ing ad­vised to run their taps for a few min­utes un­til the wa­ter runs clear, which will help re­move any re­main­ing sed­i­ment with­in ser­vice lines.

The Au­thor­i­ty thanked the pub­lic for its pa­tience and said the per­ma­nent re­pairs, though tem­porar­i­ly dis­rup­tive, are nec­es­sary to pre­vent more fre­quent or pro­longed is­sues in the fu­ture and to safe­guard the long-term in­tegri­ty of the trans­mis­sion pipeline.