WASA advises of reduced production at Desalcott due to raw water challenges

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) has re­port­ed a tem­po­rary re­duc­tion in wa­ter pro­duc­tion at the De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DE­SAL­COTT) fa­cil­i­ty due to re­cent changes in the qual­i­ty of the raw sea­wa­ter en­ter­ing the plant.

DE­SAL­COTT ob­served on Feb­ru­ary 22nd an above nor­mal pres­ence of or­gan­ic ma­te­r­i­al in its in­take wa­ter, a vari­a­tion that is usu­al­ly a nat­ur­al oc­cur­rence. To pro­tect equip­ment and en­sure the fi­nal qual­i­ty of drink­ing wa­ter, plant process­es have been ad­just­ed, re­sult­ing in a tem­po­rary re­duc­tion in out­put.

WASA con­firmed that wa­ter qual­i­ty re­mains safe for pub­lic con­sump­tion and that treat­ed wa­ter con­tin­ues to meet the high­est safe­ty stan­dards. In­ves­ti­ga­tions and sam­pling are on­go­ing in sur­round­ing ar­eas, in­clud­ing the Cou­va Riv­er out­let, to bet­ter un­der­stand the fac­tors af­fect­ing the raw wa­ter sup­ply.

Pro­duc­tion lev­els were sta­ble through late Feb­ru­ary, but the re­cent shift prompt­ed op­er­a­tional ad­just­ments on March 2nd. Com­mu­ni­ties nor­mal­ly served by the De­sal­cott fa­cil­i­ty are ex­pect­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence tem­po­rary re­duc­tions in sup­ply. Af­fect­ed ar­eas in­clude Ca­roni, War­renville, Cunu­pia, Ch­agua­nas, Ca­paro, Chase Vil­lage, Cou­va, Point Lisas, Cal­i­for­nia, Clax­ton Bay, Plai­sance Park, Pointe-à-Pierre, San Fer­nan­do, Vista­bel­la, Gas­par­il­lo, Mara­bel­la, South West Union Hall, Pleas­antville, Palmiste, Phillip­ine, Dun­can Vil­lage, Es­per­ance, Gulf View, Bel Air, La Ro­main, South Oropouche, Ota­heite, Rousil­lac, Aripero, parts of La Brea, Av­o­cat, Fyz­abad, parts of Siparia in­clud­ing De Gannes Vil­lage and Quar­ry Vil­lage, San Fran­cique, Debe, Syne Vil­lage, Lowkie Trace, Sun­rees Road, and Mo­ra Dam Road.

WASA said it is work­ing close­ly with DE­SAL­COTT to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion and man­age avail­able re­sources, aim­ing to re­turn op­er­a­tions to nor­mal as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. Cus­tomers are urged to use wa­ter wise­ly and store an ad­e­quate sup­ply dur­ing ser­vice dis­rup­tions.

For as­sis­tance or to re­quest a truck-borne sup­ply, cus­tomers can con­tact WASA’s Cus­tomer Con­tact Cen­tre toll-free at 800-4420/26.