Tank farms, millions in contracts, but various communities say still no water in taps

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty has been spend­ing mil­lions of dol­lars to truck wa­ter in­to com­mu­ni­ties and build sev­er­al tank farms, es­ti­mat­ed to be over $7 mil­lion in all, to im­prove dis­tri­b­u­tion, yet res­i­dents across Trinidad say they are still go­ing weeks with­out wa­ter in their taps. Some say they are buy­ing wa­ter from pri­vate sup­pli­ers, oth­ers are col­lect­ing rain­wa­ter, while fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to ra­tion what lit­tle they re­ceive.

A Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion found that more than $16 mil­lion was award­ed in wa­ter truck­ing con­tracts be­tween De­cem­ber 2025 and June 2026 and the pend­ing con­struc­tion of ten tank farms; ques­tions have been raised about the ef­fec­tive­ness of the spend­ing as the coun­try’s wa­ter woes per­sists.

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Be­tween De­cem­ber 2025 and June of this year, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) award­ed over $16 mil­lion in con­tracts to de­liv­er truck-borne wa­ter to de­prived com­mu­ni­ties.