Ruptured pipeline a matter of concern

Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales argued fiercely on behalf of WASA's repair teams on Tuesday, describing media commentary on the crippling four-day water outage as unfair.

A ruptured pipeline unexpectedly cut access to water to an estimated 250,000 people.

Mr Gonzales' spirited defence and salute of the efforts of the repair team, many of whom he said had worked on the repair for 48 hours straight, is merited.

The work was complicated by the age of WASA's pipelines which are no longer in commercial production.

Most were laid down in the Lock Joint sewer extension project in 1966, which installed 384 kilometres of sewer lines in Port of Spain, Arima and San Fernando.

That project was a source of considerable bacchanal and was one of the first major government contracts to be subject to accusations of malfeasance.

There were also contractual issues with the restoration of excavation work on the buried lines, which left behind dusty roads and mud for months.

Reinforced concrete pipe should last at least a century in continuous use, with galvanised steel expected to last half that time.

But the quality of the material used in the lines and the external pressures they are exposed to also determine their longevity.

What Mr Gonzales called a "skilful" repair on the line, joining a steel pipeline to the older concrete pipe, is simply what the public would call a "ratch," a temporary fix intended to bring the line back into service without extending its service life.

When we think of a main's water line, it's normal to think of the distribution lines that feed individual homes. The line that collapsed last week was a 48-inch monster that acts as a backbone for wide-scale water distribution. This main also failed near the Churchill Roosevelt Highway in February 2014.

The professional advice Mr Gonzales was given was to abandon the pipe, but he baulked at the eight-day timeline for that job.

A new bypass pipeline was promised with the bulk water redirected to a more modern distribution system, but no schedule was given for that project. WASA is also to articulate a plan to manage the widespread issues with mains water and sewer transmission that lead to the loss of half the water put into its mains and foul leaks from sewer lines that endanger communities.

The only real solution is not repair, but replacement.

This is no minor undertaking. The original 1960s Lock Joint contract was for $1 million. Remaking water distribution today will cost far more. The 2014 cost for replacing the mains from the Navet dam was estimated at $117 million, and the Caroni-Arena line would have cost $200 million.

It's time to stop kicking this leaking can further down the road.