By: Staff Writer
October 25, 2022
Access to clean, potable water for the Caribbean is a top priority as one country admits that approximately one third of their population can be cut off from access to fresh, potable water at any given time.
Marvin Gonzales, minister of public utilities in Trinidad and Tobago, speaking at the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association’s conference at the Atlantis, Paradise Island Resort, said: “60 percent of Trinidad’s water is from surface water sources, rivers, and streams. 20 percent is from groundwater Wells and 20 percent from other sources…
“Most of the surface water sources in East Trinidad, my constituency is located in East Trinidad and oftentimes when we have extreme weather conditions, most of WASA’s (Water and Sewerage Authority of Trinidad and Tobago) water treatment plants have to be shut down because of silt and screens and we have to protect the pumps from going out of operations or whatever.”
He added: “Oftentimes when these things happen, over 200,000 citizens are without water, because of the need to shut down the plants to allow the water to be cleared up, and to allow WASA to go and do some restoration to get those funds up and running.”
Earlier in October flash-flooding struck Trinidad and Tobago following heavy rain brought by a tropical disturbance.
The heavy rain caused widespread flooding along the nation’s major roadways. At least one bridge has been closed, as have many schools. Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross reported flooding in eastern parts of Trinidad island, including Arouca, Arima, Tunapuna, Sangre Grande, Piarco and St. Helena. In many incidents the heavy rain had caused roadside drains to overtop their banks causing water to spill out onto roadways and into homes.
Guyana on the other hand, has significant challenges with flooding as well, but their entire outlook has changed towards providing newer technologies to help combat the flooding and non-revenue water challenge in the country.
Collin Croal, minister for housing and water in Guyana, said: “Within the last year with our budgetary allocation for the water sector alone has increased about by 300 percent. So what are some of the issues we’re confronted with and it’s relevant, because we discussed that over the last two days, for example every year we’re talking about non-revenue water, but yet it’s a big issue, it’s a boiling issue. Ghana has about 60 percent to 65 percent of non-revenue water. So we have a lot of work yet to bring this down. But here, I also want to pause to acknowledge the role that is being played by the lending agency, the multilateral agencies because I think now more than ever, their understanding and so access to financing is much more easily had.”
He added: “So for us is changing how, one dealing with our non-revenue water. Secondly, about changing out our archaic systems that we have, you can’t talk about development and you can’t talk about increasing capacity if you don’t change what you have under the ground. And thirdly too is about the technology. We have to change much from our manual system that we have.”