Caroni plant faces temporary shutdown

A mas­sive, tem­po­rary dis­rup­tion in pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply is on the hori­zon for thou­sands of cit­i­zens across North, Cen­tral, and South Trinidad.

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry on Fri­day warn­ing cus­tomers to pre­pare for low wa­ter pres­sure or a com­plete loss of sup­ply.

The dis­rup­tion stems from es­sen­tial elec­tri­cal works to be car­ried out by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC). Crews will in­stall a crit­i­cal 20/25MVA trans­former at the Ca­roni Are­na Sub­sta­tion, lo­cat­ed di­rect­ly at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant.

Be­cause the 66kV bus must be de-en­er­gised for the project, the en­tire Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Fa­cil­i­ty will un­der­go a full shut­down.

The ma­jor works are sched­uled dur­ing late-night and ear­ly-morn­ing hours in an ef­fort to min­imise day­time dis­rup­tion. The shut­down is set to be­gin on Wednes­day, June 3, 2026, at 10:00 p.m. and is ex­pect­ed to con­clude on Thurs­day, June 4, 2026, at 5:00 a.m.

The in­ter­rup­tion will af­fect nu­mer­ous com­mu­ni­ties.

In North Trinidad, ar­eas served by the Val­sayn and El So­cor­ro boost­er sta­tions—in­clud­ing San Juan, Barataria, Port of Spain, St James, and Bel­mont—are ex­pect­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence dis­rup­tions.

Cen­tral and South Trinidad will al­so be sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect­ed, with ma­jor ar­eas such as Pi­ar­co, Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va, and San Fer­nan­do fac­ing re­duced sup­ply.

The South-West Penin­su­la, stretch­ing from San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin, will al­so ex­pe­ri­ence low pres­sure or dry taps, af­fect­ing com­mu­ni­ties such as La Ro­maine, Siparia, and Pe­nal.

Head of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Kristy Ram­nar­ine is­sued the state­ment on be­half of WASA, which op­er­ates un­der the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Act, Chap­ter 54:40.

Ram­nar­ine apol­o­gised for the in­con­ve­nience and thanked cus­tomers for their pa­tience, not­ing that the works are es­sen­tial to im­prov­ing long-term ser­vice re­li­a­bil­i­ty.

Cus­tomers seek­ing fur­ther in­for­ma­tion or as­sis­tance can con­tact WASA’s toll-free Cus­tomer Con­tact Cen­tre at 800-4420 or 800-4426.