BROWN WATER TEMPORARY

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is con­tin­u­ing ef­forts to re­solve the dis­coloured wa­ter af­fect­ing con­sumers in parts of north, cen­tral and south Trinidad, as­sur­ing the is­sue is tem­po­rary.

Padarath pro­vid­ed the up­date in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day while re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les on whether ur­gent mea­sures were be­ing tak­en to ad­dress com­plaints from cus­tomers in ar­eas in­clud­ing Diego Mar­tin, Port-of-Spain, cen­tral and south Trinidad.

Con­sumers across sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties have raised con­cerns in re­cent days about dis­coloured wa­ter com­ing from their taps.

Re­spond­ing to Gon­za­les, Padarath said he was sur­prised by the ques­tion com­ing from a for­mer Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

“Mr Speak­er, I’m a lit­tle bit sur­prised at this ques­tion com­ing from a for­mer min­is­ter of pub­lic util­i­ties. How­ev­er, ear­li­er this week WASA ad­vised that the tem­po­rary wa­ter dis­coloura­tion fol­lowed the sched­uled main­te­nance shut­down at De­sal­cott, which is an an­nu­al event,” he said.

Padarath ex­plained that ad­just­ments to the trans­mis­sion sys­tem, fol­lowed by the restora­tion of nor­mal wa­ter pres­sure, dis­turbed sed­i­ment with­in sec­tions of the net­work, re­sult­ing in tem­po­rary dis­coloura­tion.

“WASA im­me­di­ate­ly com­menced flush­ing op­er­a­tions in the af­fect­ed ar­eas and they have ad­vised the pub­lic that the wa­ter re­mains safe for do­mes­tic use,” he added.

The min­is­ter said the au­thor­i­ty had act­ed trans­par­ent­ly.

“Mr Speak­er, WASA has noth­ing to hide. The prob­lem was iden­ti­fied, the pub­lic was in­formed and cor­rec­tive ac­tion tak­en,” he said, not­ing that a sim­i­lar is­sue af­fect­ed parts of cen­tral and north Trinidad in 2022.

“This hap­pens from time to time, par­tic­u­lar­ly where sed­i­ment im­pacts the wa­ter­course.”

Padarath said the is­sue was not new and ref­er­enced a Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022 ar­ti­cle head­lined “WASA—Dis­coloured Red Wa­ter Sup­ply to Parts of Cen­tral and North Trinidad.”

“There­fore, that is why I’m sur­prised (the ques­tion) com­ing from a for­mer min­is­ter of pub­lic util­i­ties. This hap­pens from time to time, par­tic­u­lar­ly where there’s sed­i­ment im­pact­ing the wa­ter­course,” he said.

Padarath al­so re­spond­ed to com­ments from Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert.

“I want to in­di­cate to him that in a Guardian ar­ti­cle in 2009, when he was the min­is­ter at that time, there was a head­line that ‘WASA says brown wa­ter good to drink’. And that hap­pened un­der two PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions,” Padarath said.

In a sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion, Gon­za­les asked whether the min­is­ter was aware that sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties not sup­plied by ei­ther De­sal­cott or the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant were al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dis­coloured wa­ter.

Padarath replied that the prob­lem was not lim­it­ed to those fa­cil­i­ties.

“The chal­lenges re­sult­ing from the shut­down of De­sal­cott and the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant are not iso­lat­ed or unique to those two fa­cil­i­ties. They have im­pact­ed oth­er ar­eas that ser­vice dif­fer­ent parts of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and there­fore the chal­lenges have re­mained the same,” he said.

“Those were two fa­cil­i­ties I iden­ti­fied where we ex­pe­ri­enced that dis­coloura­tion, but it is not unique or iso­lat­ed to Ca­roni or south Trinidad. It has im­pact­ed parts of north Trinidad as well.”

The min­is­ter added that re­cent rain­fall had wors­ened the sit­u­a­tion by stir­ring sed­i­ment with­in wa­ter treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties.

“I’m ad­vised by WASA that be­cause of the rains we’ve seen re­cent­ly, it has churned up the sed­i­ment in the wa­ter treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties. There­fore, the chal­lenges in fil­ter­ing out the sand and dirt have cre­at­ed some dif­fi­cul­ties there,” he said.

Asked when the is­sue would be re­solved, Padarath said WASA had ad­vised that re­me­di­a­tion ef­forts were on­go­ing.