PUBLIC Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales has hailed the Water and Sewerage Authority’s weekend shutdown as a success following its completion of 23 maintenance projects.

Last week Friday the Caroni Water Treatment Plant was powered down from midday and was restored on Sunday, earlier than the projected noon return.

The shutdown had left approximately 500,000 customers without a pipe-borne supply of water.

Gonzales said, from the onset of the shutdown, “I would have seen departments inside of WASA, the Operational Control Centre, the Director of Operations and her team both North and South, in Central, the Communications Department, Procurement Department, everyone putting their head and shoulders to the wheel to ensure that this maintenance operation, this shutdown operation was seamlessly and professionally executed.”

WASA gave the update on the exercise during a media conference which was held at the Ministry of Public Utilities’ head office, One Alexandra Place, Port of Spain, yesterday.

Director of Operations of WASA, Shaira Ali, gave a report of what the work completed within the 48-hour period entailed.

She said: “We would have done extensive works at our critical strategic booster stations at north and south (of Trinidad). Those would be at El Socorro Booster Station, at San Fernando Booster Station, Savonetta Booster and significant works at the South Oropouche Booster as well. These boosters form part of our strategic boosters and they serve a large number of customers in those areas.”

She said those works will ensure an improved and reliable water supply in those areas. She also said that maintenance works were carried out on the networks.

“We successfully dewatered the transmission system in both north and south and we had done so at the early stages of the shutdown. This would have enabled us to continue some more critical works that we deemed were important to manage the network,” she explained.

“These included valve replacement, strategic repairs that were not previously able to access because the mains were always charged, we were now able to successfully achieve dewatering and repair those significant leaks,” Ali added.

She said in the north there were some challenges in the north transmission system in Piarco which were mobilised and completed on Sunday night.

She added that following the repairs, the water supply was restored to the north transmission system and “Our critical booster stations which represents the El Socorro Booster, and the Valsayn A and B Booster Stations were restarted. This means that the restoration of supply to the northern parts of the country would have commenced from 7 a.m. this morning (yesterday).”

She also said while the estimated time to complete repairs and restore the water supply to South Trinidad was noon on Sunday, the area’s water supply was restored by 8 a.m. on that day.

She also said of the southern areas “I want to re-emphasise that on the restart of the water transmission distribution system, some persons would have started seeing water immediately and as pressures increase, (while) other areas over the course of the evening and during the next few days will see full recovery as that pressure continues to increase.”

WASA management consultant Alisha Romano said the maintenance exercise included the installation of six metres which concluded a year-long exercise of the installation of 124 meters on the off-takes of the transmission lines of Caroni North and South, the Navet Trunk Main, Hollis and North Oropouche. The meters cost WASA $16 million to purchase and install on the transmission lines.