To­ba­go hote­liers are be­ing warned by the Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce to brace for a “rough” Oc­to­ber fol­low­ing a drought warn­ing from the TT Met Of­fice amid dry con­di­tions over the past three months.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath re­cent­ly an­nounced that wa­ter re­stric­tions will be im­ple­ment­ed as au­thor­i­ties seek to man­age sup­plies. Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) act­ing CEO Dain Ma­haraj said mea­sures are be­ing tak­en to boost sup­ply, in­clud­ing up­grades to the Hills­bor­ough Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant, which are ex­pect­ed to add five mil­lion gal­lons of wa­ter per day that would oth­er­wise have flowed back in­to the rivers.

How­ev­er, stake­hold­ers re­main con­cerned, as Oc­to­ber is a crit­i­cal pe­ri­od for busi­ness­es, with an in­flux of vis­i­tors for the an­nu­al Car­ni­val. The eco­nom­ic boost for the is­land is ac­com­pa­nied by height­ened de­mand for the crit­i­cal re­source, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ac­com­mo­da­tion sec­tor.