The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) is de­nounc­ing what it calls the reck­less and un­law­ful ac­tions of a quar­ry­ing con­trac­tor who dis­charged ef­flu­ent in­to trib­u­taries feed­ing the Gua­napo Riv­er, caus­ing vis­i­ble con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the wa­ter­course and threat­en­ing wa­ter pro­duc­tion ef­fi­cien­cy at the Ca­roni Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant.

In a state­ment, WASA said the dis­charge rep­re­sents a clear breach of en­vi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions and has al­ready had op­er­a­tional con­se­quences. The Au­thor­i­ty con­firmed that it has been forced to im­ple­ment en­hanced pu­rifi­ca­tion mea­sures to keep the wa­ter sup­ply safe, lead­ing to re­duced wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty for cus­tomers.

“This in­ci­dent rep­re­sents not on­ly an en­vi­ron­men­tal of­fence but al­so a di­rect threat to pub­lic wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty,” WASA warned.