CEO on water woes

THE water disruptions faced by residents in the Suva-Nausori corridor over the weekend was caused by the replacement of a 30-year-old transformer at Waila and redundancy in rainfall across the country.

“The first phase was a shutdown where we put in place temporary transformers so we can keep operation as long as we can continue and then we put in place permanent transformers and then we switch the power across to those,” Water Authority of Fiji CEO Dr Amit Chanan said at a news conference in Suva yesterday.

“Unfortunately, because the system does not have redundancy when we carry out such major repairs, we have to cause disruptions.

“So the discussion we had with the minister, one of the early focuses during the next six months is going to be around building at least some redundancy when we carry out such repairs like that.”

He said more than 50 water trucks were deployed to supply water to affected residents in the Suva-Nausori area last weekend.

Public Works Minister Ro Filipe Tuisawau said over the next four years, Government would look into disruption issues inherited from the previous administration.

“What we are doing now is working together with WAF and we recognise that some things have been done, for example the Viria project, that will alleviate the situation from July.

“But there are issues such as the back-up power and water pumps which we will need to rectify as soon as possible.”

WAF chief operating officer Seru Soderberg said the cost of the entire replacement of the transformers was more than $4 million.

He said last week, WAF recorded a severe drop in its extraction capability from the Waimanu River because of the lack of rainfall experienced over the last month.

Mr Soderberg said replacing the transformers at the Waila Water Treatment Plant was done because the Tamavua Reservoir water level had dropped to below standard level. He added majority of areas have received water and WAF was still in the process of restoring water supply to other places.