WASA condemns illegal discharge into Guanapo River

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is de­nounc­ing what it calls the reck­less and un­law­ful ac­tions of a quar­ry­ing con­trac­tor who dis­charged ef­flu­ent in­to trib­u­taries feed­ing the Gua­napo Riv­er, caus­ing vis­i­ble con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the wa­ter­course and threat­en­ing wa­ter pro­duc­tion ef­fi­cien­cy at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant.

In a state­ment, WASA said the dis­charge rep­re­sents a clear breach of en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions and has al­ready had op­er­a­tional con­se­quences. The Au­thor­i­ty con­firmed that it has been forced to im­ple­ment en­hanced pu­rifi­ca­tion mea­sures to keep the wa­ter sup­ply safe, lead­ing to re­duced wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty for cus­tomers.

“This in­ci­dent rep­re­sents not on­ly an en­vi­ron­men­tal of­fence but al­so a di­rect threat to pub­lic wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty,” WASA warned.

De­spite the set­back, the Au­thor­i­ty as­sured the pub­lic that wa­ter cur­rent­ly be­ing dis­trib­uted through its net­work re­mains ful­ly com­pli­ant with all safe­ty and qual­i­ty stan­dards. It said es­ca­lat­ed mon­i­tor­ing and treat­ment pro­to­cols have been ac­ti­vat­ed to en­sure the con­tin­ued de­liv­ery of safe, potable wa­ter.

WASA is now work­ing with oth­er rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to in­ves­ti­gate and put a stop to what it de­scribed as ir­re­spon­si­ble ac­tiv­i­ty, and is urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port any sus­pi­cious con­duct that may en­dan­ger wa­ter re­sources.

“The Au­thor­i­ty re­mains res­olute in its man­date to safe­guard na­tion­al wa­ter sources and up­hold un­com­pro­mis­ing stan­dards in wa­ter de­liv­ery,” the re­lease con­clud­ed.