Fill up your tanks, your buckets and conserve what water you do have.Citizens from areas all over the country are at present faced with little or no water.Insiders at the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) say the company is now struggling to shift its water distribution cycles to handle the shortage.Thus far, rainfall for the month has only reached 12 per cent of what the Meteorological Office at Piarco had predicted, and there has been no word from WASA executives on when the situation is likely to improve.Many citizens whom the Express spoke with across T&T said within the last two weeks, their water supplies have been unreliable. Areas affected include Belmont, Maracas, St Joseph, San Juan, Chaguanas, Tacarigua/Tunapuna and Laventille. Residents of many areas in South Trinidad who have gone almost two weeks without a supply took to the streets last week in protest action.Residents of La Brea have said sometimes they only receive water twice or three times a month, and the shortage has intensified an already bad situation for them.The San Juan/Aranguez area has been having supply problems for an estimated eight days now, and Charlieville dwellers told the Express they have not been given a steady supply since January 10.Sources at the Meteorological Office said they have been urging WASA to issue a statement.’My tank almost empty and WASA has not even published an advertisement explaining what is happening,’ one woman from Central Trinidad said.Last Thursday, WASA was scheduled to hold a media conference, but it was cancelled at the last minute.The day after the cancellation, WASA’s South regional manager Collin Nym met with residents in the Penal/ Debe area where he reportedly warned that the company’s water production potential for 2010 was not at its best, and that the company was revising its water schedule.Ellen Lewis, WASA’s general manager of communications, said the situation in South Trinidad, which was worse than in the North and in need of dire attention, was being attended to.She said citizens in areas such as Jacob Settlement, Los Bajos, Palo Seco Branch Road, Waddell Village, Alexander Village and Harmony Hall have already been getting relief from their water woes.In a statement, Lewis said: ’In view of recent challenges with the supply and distribution of pipe-borne water to areas in South, the authority has taken the decision to appoint Allan Poon King, general manager operations, to head the management of the utility’s business operations in South Trinidad.’She said Poon King would be responsible for spearheading a plan ’to improve the reliability of the water supply to customers in South Trinidad’.
