Hose ban does not make sense

THE EDITOR: The recent proposal by the Ministry of Public Utilities, with reference to WASA, to ban all use of hoses attached to pipes does not sound like a well thought-out idea.

One can understand that water from the sky has almost been reduced to zero for a number of days now, so we must conserve water to make it last through the rest of the dry season.

We can further understand that a ban on using hoses to wash vehicles and yards is reasonable because these activities can be delayed until more potable water is available.

But I wonder if the WASA planning team knows that the use of buckets sometimes wastes more water than using a light sprinkle to water plants? Much of the water thrown on a plant with bucket or other vessels runs off the surface and is lost to the plants.

Now, what about if there is an encroaching bush fire near a property? Are we expected to create bucket brigades and wait for water to fill containers then to be taken to the source of the fire to extinguish it?

We have seen several properties burnt to the ground and vehicles destroyed in central Trinidad because there was no water in the taps and residents had to rely on bucket brigades.

We must also take into consideration that many people have water tanks as a result of the unreliable water supply, some of them with no automatic filling apparatus. Hoses are attached to the tanks to fill them. If these tanks have to be filled by bucket, when will this task be completed?

We have seen the Minister of Public Utilities on TTT boasting about the number of new booster stations to pump water to homes and businesses. But isn’t the water pumped the same amount drawn from the existing reservoirs?

I think the money would have been better spent on building more desalination plants and creating more and larger ponds to catch the abundance of water we receive during the wet season instead of allowing it to run off into rivers and to the ocean.

Why do we have to hear the same song year after year like a broken record?

WKS HOSEIN

Chaguanas