WASA denies claims of no water in east Penal/Debe

The Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) denies claims that a significant area in the Penal/Debe region has not had water made chairman of the corporation Dr Allen Sammy.

"The authority rejects the assertion that the entire eastern half of the region serviced by the Navet Water Treatment Plant has been deprived of a water supply or that the desal and Caroni water supplies have been directed elsewhere, with little or no regard for Penal/Debe residents," WASA said in a release on Friday.

The utility was responding to Sammy who, on Wednesday, said the Penal/Debe area has been without a water supply for six weeks because the supplies from the desalination and Caroni plants have been regulated and redirected to other areas.

WASA said the area is served by the TCO booster via the Navet Water Treatment Plant, as well as the Malgretoute, Clarke Road, South Oropouche and Thicke Village booster stations via the Caroni/Point Lisas desal plants.

It said repairs at the TCO booster were carded to end on Friday but on Saturday, corporate WASA communications manager Daniel Plenty said there were unforeseen delays while trying to repair the booster. He said there were technical issues in replacing one of the units at the facility, however workers were expected to finish by Saturday evening.

Sammy said in a WhatsApp response Saturday again said he believed WASA has placed Penal/Debe on a backburner.

"The 10,000 deprived is not an exaggeration. There are over 22,000 residential buildings and around 4,000 more commercial buildings."

He added that WASA has been drilling a water well for over a year now referring to what the utility said were projects it was undertaking to regulate a water supply in the area.

Those include the construction of a new Penal Well #26 as part of the national water stabilisation improvement programme. This is expected to increase production at the Penal Water Treatment Plant by approximately 100,000 gallons per day.

The authority said it is currently looking into the acquisition of the Mora Dam, Syne Village, to further increase production at the plant and will undergo the reconfiguration of the Malgretoute booster station to increase the pumping capacity to the area. These projects are expected to be completed by the end of the month.

Sammy said, "At monthly regional co-ordinating meetings (they attend faithfully) the same plans of upgrading wells and buying or accessing the Mora Dam are repeated."

He said WASA only provides water for customers who are up-to-date with payments yet cannot give the supply in a timely manner.

In his release on Wednesday, Sammy said the standard waiting time was two to four weeks and that the situation was ironic given the area was flood prone. He said the area flooded on three separate incidents in July and August yet there was no stable water supply.

WASA indicated that this comes as there had been several unplanned events including a mechanical issue with a pump at the Navet facility from July 23 to present. There was also a leak on the 400 mm transmission pipeline and a power outage and mechanical issue impacting one of the pumps at the TCO booster.

Sammy called on Minister of Public Utilities Marvin Gonzales to rectify the situation and take his proposals into consideration for new water supplies. Sammy asked the ministry to construct retention ponds, wells and a dam at Haggard Trace, and said that there are available water treatment packages that can be placed at the proposed sites.