Environmental sustainability in Trinidad and Tobago: ensuring safe drinking water and sanitation.

Trinidad and Tobago is well on track to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of ensuring environmental sustainability and adequate access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities for its 1.3 million population. The goal is to reduce by half the number of people without access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation by 2015. This is against the depressing background of a world in which more than 1 billion people do not have safe drinking water supplies, while some 2.6 billion still lack basic sanitation facilities, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

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The picture is completely different in this fast-growing, energy-based small island developing State of Trinidad and Tobago, where approximately 92 per cent of the population already has access to drinking water, albeit at varying levels of service, and about 92 per cent sanitation coverage through a diverse range of waste disposal systems.

The challenge--and the mandate given by the Government to the State-owned Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA)--is to upgrade the water and sanitation sectors at all levels in the shortest time possible. This will ensure not only that the MDGs are achieved but, more important, that water and sanitation services are delivered 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7) to the entire population, in keeping with the Government's vision for the country to attain developed world status by 2020. Currently, 26 per cent of the population gets a 24/7 water supply; the rest receives water on a weekly schedule. But there are many communities still without a regular water supply and this is being addressed through an ongoing development plan.

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In 1965, when WASA was formed by the amalgamation of six agencies, water production stood at 49 million gallons per day, servicing a customer base of 90,000. Today, it produces 210 million gallons daily and services 325,000 customers, a figure that translates to some 1.16 million consumers. Notably, water quality consistently meets stringent WHO standards. WASA is at the forefront of a development programme that will increase in the next three years the number of consumers receiving potable water 24/7 from the current 26 to 36 per cent and the number having access to water from 92 to 95 per cent within the same time frame. This is well within MDG expectations and salutary to the initiatives of an organization battling problems, primarily a rising debt burden due principally to low revenues exacerbated by an extremely low-tariff structure, and water loss caused by illegal abstractions, fractures and leaks in the pipeline infrastructure, part of which is more than 70 years old.

The current development thrust is expansive and is being executed through projects and supplemental Government-funded programmes managed by WASA to provide pipe-borne water to underserved, unserved and socially depressed areas. New production wells have come on stream and others are being drilled; service reservoirs have been rehabilitated, booster stations built and old ones refurbished to pump water to high-lift areas throughout the country. New pipelines are being installed at an average rate of 100 kilometres a year. More than 150,000 customers have benefited from an improved water supply in the last two years, and the number is steadily increasing.

In the sanitation sector, 30 per cent (20 public and 10 private) of the population is connected to sewerage systems; 58 per cent use septic tanks and soakaways, while 10 per cent use pit latrines, and 2 per cent have no coverage. Upgrading will therefore involve expanding the sector to include all parties. A major development is the imminent commissioning of a new $226 million (US$39 million) wastewater treatment plant situated in wetlands southeast of the capital city. Rated as the largest and most environmentally-friendly plant of its kind in the Caribbean region, the facility will treat a maximum of 180 million litres of wastewater daily from an area with 365,000 persons in Greater Port of Spain and environs. The treatment process uses the latest in ultraviolet technology for disinfection and includes anaerobic digestion and biogas removal systems, ensuring an effluent quality that exceeds national and international standards. Moreover, the operational systems also reduce the risk of transmitting waterborne diseases, ensure maintenance and preservation of the ecosystem and fishing resources, and reduce degradation of the wetlands bordering the Gulf of Paria.

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Minister of Public Utilities and the Environment Pennelope Beckles, who has been closely monitoring developmental works in the water and sanitation sectors, articulated the Government's position during the thirteenth session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in New York on 21 April 2005. In her address, she said that the commissioning of the new wastewater treatment plant was among several growth areas in Trinidad and Tobago aimed at achieving the MDGs. She identified several other initiatives that contributed to the path of success, including:

* The commissioning of master plans in respect of water and wastewater and integrated solid waste management:

* The launch of a national reforestation and watershed rehabilitation programme to improve the protection of freshwater sources, as well as of a community-based programme for the protection and enhancement of the environment; and

* The implementation of a US$200-million programme to improve water and wastewater service delivery.

WASA is inextricably linked to all those initiatives, and as its Chief Executive Officer and part of the Government's delegation to the CSD session, I have expressed great optimism for the achievement of all the MDGs. Referring to the possibilities that the effluent quality from the new wastewater treatment plant opened up, the matter would be subject to close study before tapping into its revenue-earning potential. For example, the Singaporean experience is instructive, since that country is already into water reuse and substitution to great effect, and having other benefits, such as the use of sludge as soil conditioner for agricultural purposes.

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Key managerial and technical staff are continually exposed to international conferences to keep up to date on trends in the water and sanitation sectors. "We seize these opportunities to interface with other delegates and learn from each other as we seek ways to further develop our respective organizations", said Wayne Joseph, WASA General Manager of Operations and the Caribbean representative of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, at an international meeting in Dakar, Senegal in December 2004.

WASA recently took over responsibility for improving the maintenance of 24 sewer systems by the State-owned National Housing Authority and is addressing the need to take over some 150 private wastewater treatment plants that are poorly maintained and pose a serious health threat. Upstream of all these activities is the Water Resources Agency (WRA), a WASA division headed by Steve Fletcher, which is pro-active in all areas that impinge on the protection and conservation of Trinidad and Tobago's water resources. WRA operatives are meeting regularly with stake-holders--industries, farmers, land developers, quarrying operators, Government ministries and regional corporations--that demand water from WASA and discharge effluent into watercourses. They are holding consultations and hosting workshops, all designed to raise awareness of sound practices in the use of water, sanitation and the environment.

"This is the preferred way of educating and advocating partnership in caring for the environment, and there are encouraging signs that this approach is working", Mr. Fletcher said.

On another front, the WASA Corporate Communications Department is continuing a schools outreach programme and graphic public exhibitions on the operations of water and wastewater treatment plants, and the environmental dangers caused by slash-and-burn farming, illegal quarrying and other malpractices that pollute the water courses. In 2000, WRA completed a major study related to water resources management, focusing on critical areas such as an institutional framework through an integrated management system.

The Government recently approved the Draft Water Resources Management Policy, an important step that provides a framework for guiding actions with respect to management of water resources. It seeks to unify all sub-sectors across the wide spectrum of activities that impact the environment and, at the same time, to ensure that the activity of one sector does not compromise the work of another. The next step is developing the legislative framework for managing the country's water resources in keeping with international principles and standards relevant to the water sector.

Technical issues, such as desalination technology and water recycling, establishment of a hydro-technical monitoring network and capacity-building, are critical to successful management of water resources. A significant move in this direction is the establishment, for the first time in the region, of professional training primarily in the water sector. A two-year Associate Degree programme in water resources management and technology, now in its second cycle, was established in 2002 to address the important issue of capacity-building and sustainable development.

Systems are indeed on go as WASA, backed by Government funding, strives to accomplish its corporate vision to be a high-quality water utility service provider for the people of Trinidad and Tobago, and thereafter to be the centre of excellence within the water utility sector in the Caribbean.

Errol Grimes has been Chief Executive Officer of the Water and Sewerage Authority of Trinidad and Tobago since 2002. A civil engineer with over 20 years experience in water and wastewater management, he is former President of the Caribbean Water and Wastewater Association, as well as a former board member of the Inter-American Association of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering.

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