Second attack on WASA infrastructure disrupts Tabaquite water supply

WASA Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Dain Ma­haraj has con­demned what he de­scribed as a sec­ond brazen at­tack on the Au­thor­i­ty’s in­fra­struc­ture in less than 24 hours, fol­low­ing the theft of elec­tri­cal wiring at the Tabaquite Boost­er Sta­tion.

Ma­haraj said the in­ci­dent was dis­cov­ered at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5 a.m. to­day and forced the im­me­di­ate shut­down of the fa­cil­i­ty, dis­rupt­ing wa­ter ser­vice to thou­sands of res­i­dents in Tabaquite and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Cus­tomers are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing low wa­ter pres­sure or com­plete ser­vice in­ter­rup­tions as a re­sult.

He not­ed that the in­ci­dent fol­lows a sim­i­lar act of van­dal­ism at the Biche Boost­er Sta­tion less than 24 hours ear­li­er, where un­known in­di­vid­u­als stole crit­i­cal elec­tri­cal wiring, caus­ing a com­plete pow­er fail­ure at the fa­cil­i­ty. The Biche in­ci­dent, which was dis­cov­ered ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing, forced the sta­tion of­fline at 6 a.m. and dis­rupt­ed wa­ter sup­ply to sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing Charu­ma, Biche, Plumi­tan and sur­round­ing ar­eas. T&TEC was no­ti­fied im­me­di­ate­ly, and teams from both agen­cies were de­ployed to re­pair the dam­aged in­fra­struc­ture and re­store ser­vice.

Ma­haraj said these were not vic­tim­less crimes, as at­tacks on crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture di­rect­ly af­fect fam­i­lies, schools, health­care fa­cil­i­ties, busi­ness­es and vul­ner­a­ble mem­bers of so­ci­ety.

WASA’s tech­ni­cal teams, work­ing along­side the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC), have mo­bilised to re­store op­er­a­tions. Ma­haraj said re­pairs are un­der­way and the Tabaquite Boost­er Sta­tion is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to ser­vice by 7.30 p.m. to­day.

He added that re­peat­ed at­tacks di­vert re­sources away from sys­tem im­prove­ments and place ad­di­tion­al strain on in­fra­struc­ture main­te­nance ef­forts.

Ma­haraj urged mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­main vig­i­lant and re­port sus­pi­cious per­sons, ve­hi­cles or ac­tiv­i­ties near boost­er sta­tions, treat­ment plants, reser­voirs and oth­er util­i­ty fa­cil­i­ties.

Sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty can be re­port­ed anony­mous­ly through WASA’s van­dal­ism hot­line at 496-6738.

He said WASA is work­ing close­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and oth­er law en­force­ment agen­cies to iden­ti­fy and pros­e­cute those re­spon­si­ble.

Ma­haraj warned that at­tacks on the na­tion’s wa­ter in­fra­struc­ture af­fect the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and called for a unit­ed na­tion­al re­sponse to pro­tect crit­i­cal pub­lic util­i­ties.