WASA restrictions fail to stop water spraying at Stink and Dutty

Re­stric­tions im­ple­ment­ed by the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) in To­ba­go failed to stop the flow of wa­ter on Fri­day morn­ing, as thou­sands of Stink and Dut­ty pa­trons were sprayed with hoses.

Sec­re­tary of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Ricky Joe­field has con­demned the wastage of wa­ter as the is­land ex­pe­ri­ences drought-like con­di­tions due to the ef­fects of El Niño.

A WASA me­dia re­lease on Thurs­day called for the “ef­fi­cient and re­spon­si­ble” use of the pre­cious re­source dur­ing the car­ni­val. More than 60,000 vis­i­tors are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in To­ba­go for the an­nu­al fes­ti­val, dou­bling the is­land’s pop­u­la­tion and in­creas­ing de­mand for wa­ter.

The re­stric­tions pro­hib­it the use of hoses and sim­i­lar equip­ment “for wa­ter­ing pri­vate gar­dens and/or wash­ing pri­vate mo­tor cars”. WASA said the re­stric­tions al­so cov­er the use of sprin­klers and pres­sure wash­ers for sim­i­lar pur­pos­es.

It al­so called on all car­ni­val stake­hold­ers to con­serve wa­ter dur­ing their prepa­ra­tions, cel­e­bra­tions and clean-up.

“Event or­gan­is­ers, ac­com­mo­da­tion providers and ven­dors should care­ful­ly plan their wa­ter re­quire­ments, mon­i­tor con­sump­tion and pre­vent un­nec­es­sary use,” WASA said.

Re­spond­ing to the de­vel­op­ment, a WASA of­fi­cial, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, said the au­thor­i­ty was aware of the spray­ing of pa­trons at the par­ty.

Asked whether the pro­mot­ers had re­ceived an ex­emp­tion, the of­fi­cial said no, adding that the pro­mot­ers felt the pro­hi­bi­tion did not ex­plic­it­ly state that they were barred from us­ing hoses.

Ef­forts to con­tact the pro­mot­ers were un­suc­cess­ful up to pub­li­ca­tion.