Ministers: Schools get water priority

EDUCATION Minister Anthony Garcia and Public Utilities Minister Robert Le Hunte have promised to work together to ensure schools are supplied with water in this harsh dry season and that disruptions are minimalised.

School closures because of lack of water were isolated cases, Le Hunte claimed. The duo yesterday held a joint news briefing at the Ministry of Education in Port of Spain, along with their respective technical staff, including Chief Education Officer Harrilal Seecharan and WASA acting CEO Alan Poon King.

Garcia said the ministers and their teams had just met to discuss streamlining WASA’s operations in schools.

“We have to ensure our schools are not negatively affected. Education is a basic right of all our children. Let us leave politics out of it.”

Le Hunte assured he had heard all the pleas made over the water supply, but also noted TT’s situation was much better than that of places like Jamaica.

He admitted to having some challenges, but said protocols were in place for schools.

“The impact on schools has been few and far between, isolated cases. The protocols are working," Le Hunte said. “We have to work at a level to have no school affected. We’ll make sure the few and far between situations that have arisen are eliminated.”

More broadly, Le Hunte said water must be managed to last for the next three months, rather than being allowed to run out by June.

Seecharan said schools had a prioritised water supply. Principals whose schools will need water must lodge a request with WASA by 5 pm the day before, or, failing that, by 7 am of the day in question.

“The minister said disruptions are few and far between, but we want to minimise disruption, to have no closure of schools.”

While saying local school supervisors must monitor the supply to schools, in reply to Newsday's question, Seecharan said principals could directly call WASA to request a supply and so bypass the education ministry. If that request failed to bear results, principals can activitate the machinery of the minister to get water, he added.

Seecharan listed the schools recently closed owing to no water as one school in Port of Spain, two in Caroni and two in southeast Trinidad, and recalled that a secondary school in Princes Town had, on one occasion, closed at 2 pm.

He said the storage capacity of schools would be assessed by WASA.

Le Hunte said the Met Office had predicted an extended dry period and urged water conservation.

Poon King said reservoirs were below the long-term average for the dry season. Arima is 47 per cent full compared to the usual 57 per cent. Navet stands at 50 per cent, short of the usual 53 per cent, and Hollis is at 35 per cent, down from the usual 39 per cent.

In Tobago, the Hillsborough facility stands at 54 per cent, compared to a usual 51 per cent.

Le Hunte said, while a dry season usually saw WASA supply 225 million gallons per day, it is now just 205-210 million gallons per day.

Looking into the future, he warned, “With all that is happening in the environment, situations like this will come more regularly than in the past.”