PAY FOR RIVER WATERBy DARCEL CHOY Tuesday, March 16 2010
IN THE midst of a harsh dry season, the country’s farmers are being asked to pay a fee to state utility Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) to extract water from rivers, streams and other water courses to water their crops.
The fee, described as “minimal” by WASA’s chief corporate officer Dion Abdool at a press conference yesterday, has been put at ten cents per cubic metre of water which is equivalent to 220 gallons.
Speaking at WASA’s head office in St Joseph, Abdool pointed out that water sources which are not used by the authority for drinking can be used for farming but he reiterated that the extraction must be regulated. Last Friday in the House of Representatives, Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid announced that the country was experiencing a “meteorological drought”. WASA has since prohibited the abstraction of water from several rivers.
These include the Tumpuna, Talparo, Guanapo, Arima, Caroni, Carapo (Manical) and the Mausica rivers which feed into the Caroni Arena reservoir. Other rivers which do not feed into the Caroni Arena reservoir, but are considered off-limits by WASA, include the Tompire, Aripo, North Oropouche, Caura, Acono, Lluengo, Naranjo, Maraval, Tyrico, Las Cuevas and Blanchisseuse rivers in addition to other general ground water sources.
Addressing the issue of regulating who extracts water from the various sources, WASA’s acting chief executive officer Dr Jim Lee Young admitted there were not enough water police officers to do so.
“We limit your intake by the size of pump and hose and once we know the capacity of your pump we limit you to ‘x’ hours a day. We will police this. If we do find you are abstracting outside of those periods, then we have an issue,” he explained.
Young added WASA’s measures regarding farmers will be done in consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Abdool explained that all rivers not mentioned as being off-limits remain accessible to farmers but they must still have a licence from the authority.
He noted that for farmers to get licences, they will have to make an application for how many gallons of water per day they will need. “We then go on site, measure the flow of the river to determine who are the other users of the river from your point of abstraction.
We come up with a rate of abstraction for you and we give you a licence,” Abdool explained. He also said once a two-week trial of reuse water from the Beetham Water Treatment Plant for the purpose of watering lawns and hedges provided satisfactory this water could be used by the farming community.
Dhanoo Sookhoo, president of the Agricultural Society, said members have no problem with the fee but that was not the issue. “The production of food is affected and once again the farmers continue to pay the price for a lack of planning.
“WASA has never put anything in place to manage water in the past and now we are paying the price,” she said. One farmer in South Trinidad said most farmers have chosen to either continue to illegally extract water or stop farming altogether. “Those who continue to take water basically say they have no choice (but to do so) as they have to continue making a living but some of us have just decided to abandon our crops,” the farmer said.
Noel Garcia, executive chairman of the National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (NAMDEVCO), said Agriculture Minister Arnold Piggott has called a meeting for 10 am today.
“He plans to have the meeting with various agencies to see how best they can solve the present problem as we are looking to see how we can alleviate some of them because it is bad out there, and hopefully we would get something out of it,” he said.
