Algae, pump failures shut down Morvant, Laventille community pools

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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The Mor­vant Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool was over­sub­scribed af­ter its launch in 2021 and pro­duced swim­mers who sur­passed each stage of the Learn To Swim pro­gramme.

Now, in­stead of swim­mers grow­ing in the sport, al­gae have tak­en over the pool.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the pool on Thurs­day af­ter re­ceiv­ing com­plaints about the Laven­tille Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool, which was opened two years ear­li­er.

Both pools were con­struct­ed un­der the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) while the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was in pow­er.

Res­i­dents of Cedar­wood Street, Mor­vant, where the pool is lo­cat­ed, said the area was with­out a con­stant sup­ply of wa­ter. The res­i­dents, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said they were baf­fled at the idea that a pool was built with­out such ameni­ties.

“Imag­ine a pool with wa­ter prob­lems. We does see wa­ter truck com­ing, I dun­no if is to fill up the pool or what. I know them does be pray­ing for rain to full up that pool,” one res­i­dents said.

Those fa­mil­iar with the in­ner work­ings of the pool said apart from a lack of wa­ter, the two elec­tri­cal pumps are not work­ing. This, they said, left the pool un­used for just about a year. The res­i­dents ar­gued that the pool was ini­tial­ly in full use, but a lack of care and at­ten­tion caused it to be­come a breed­ing ground for mos­qui­toes.

Not too far away is the Laven­tille Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pool, which has not been in use for at least twice as long.

Coun­cil­lor for St Ann’s Riv­er North, Ali­cia Gift, un­der whose burgess the pool falls, says she tried to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion but was un­suc­cess­ful in her at­tempts.

“There are some is­sues with the pool that needs ad­dress­ing, just more than clean­ing. I did get in con­tact with Ude­cott. Ude­cott then put me on to a project man­ag­er, who I have been in con­stant con­tact with. The project man­ag­er kept re­as­sur­ing me that she is aware of the is­sue with the pool and that ef­forts were be­ing made to re­fur­bish the pool,” Gift said.

Gift said she was told a lead had led to the clo­sure of the poo.

In­side the pool house are pic­tures of for­mer pres­i­dent Paula Mae Weekes, for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and for­mer sports min­is­ter Sham­fa Cud­joe, a sign that no one has paid much at­ten­tion to the pool in at least a year, as it is cus­tom­ary to re­place the pic­tures of dig­ni­taries with a change in gov­ernem­nt.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Sports Min­is­ter Phillip Watts, who con­firmed the min­istry is re­spon­si­ble for the pools.

“Ude­cott was man­dat­ed by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter to sup­port with the main­te­nance ser­vices. Now that the pools have been hand­ed over, the min­istry will un­der­take all the main­te­nance re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. The T&T De­fence Force sup­ports the min­istry with the op­er­a­tions of the pool and the de­liv­ery of class­es/pro­grammes,” Watts said.

Watts said the Laven­tille pool has been down due to an un­der­ground leak that Ude­cott was to ad­dress.

“The Mor­vant pool has been op­er­a­tional in­ter­mit­tent­ly through­out last year, so the state­ment that it has been down for at least a year is false. There were some is­sues in the man­age­ment of the wa­ter qual­i­ty by the ser­vice provider hired by Ude­cott, which led to some lim­i­ta­tions to the use of the pool. The pool is cur­rent­ly down be­cause of pump fail­ure,” he said.

The pools are two out of four com­mu­ni­ty pools where the De­fence Force con­ducts swim­ming class­es. The oth­ers are at the Mal­oney and D’Abadie-Mal­abar Com­mu­ni­ty Swim­ming Pools.

Watts said Ude­cott with­drew their ser­vices to the four pools as of Jan­u­ary 1 and his min­istry has reached out re­quest­ing a three-month ex­ten­sion, as well as to ad­dress the is­sues at the Laven­tille and Mor­vant pools be­fore a full with­draw­al.

“We have been guid­ed that the re­quest is be­ing de­lib­er­at­ed and we are ex­pect­ing a re­sponse and fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the mat­ter in the up­com­ing days,” he said.