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“On a hill far away,” Paul burst into mournful fo’daymorning song as he caught up with us, “stands a new water tank, the emblem of suffering and shame…”
Taken completely by surprise, Bobby and I looked blankly at each other.
“Who side you on?” Paul asked.
Scores of people, mainly seniors, frequent the Lillian Heights trail in the now bright darkness of fo’daymorning. But Bobby and I don’t really know them.
We know more or less what they look like and we know more or less where they live. But neither of us could pick out more than a handful of them in an ID parade or provide, if asked, useful personal information about too many of them.
We have on occasion made desultory conversation with a few of them but that’s usually about stuff in the national news. Or recent events in the area.
Paul, it turns out, is a Wired868 reader and had put two and two together.
“Who side you on, Mr Best?” he repeated. “Why you attacking my minister? What you know about WASA?”
“Your minister?” Bobby beat me to it. “What you know about WASA?”
“More than allyuh fuh sure!” Paul shot back.
And once mouth open, ’tory jump out.
(via Ministry of Public Utilities)
Let me back up for a reminder and some backfill. This column began with Bobby expressing concern about the absence of information re the plan for the huge Lillian Heights Service Reservoir.
A plaque with that name writ large on it adorns a little concrete structure dwarfed by the massive tank. Beside a picture of the national flag is the WASA logo.
The overgrown compound shows no sign of maintenance. A single lock and chain secure the gate. In the middle of the Lillian Heights wilderness, the tank is left to fend for itself.
To what end? Why is it there?
There is no reliable water source one can see that is easily accessible. And since it most likely will not be located above the tank anyway, is the plan to pump water up the hill into it?
Mounted on all sides of the tank are powerful floodlights visible from as far away as Maloney. They go on and off like clockwork every morning and every evening. (The TTEC meter already reads almost 16,000 units.)
But the old-fashioned watchman who stood guard over the materials during construction is no longer on the job. Is there nothing of value on or around the tank that might interest those who make their living by claiming what is not theirs?
A kilometre of 6” PVC pipe connecting the tank to the underground WASA network ends not far from the new Pampellone Villas down the hill. Above ground, the pipes are exposed to the elements, earthquakes, wind and fire, and the nefarious intent of would-be miscreants.
Near the tank, dozens of unused—unusable?—12” metal pipes have long been waiting for the owner to claim them, perhaps in the dead of night. Some 200m up the hill from Pampellone lie piles of discarded PVC pipe, bearing evidence of last season’s bushfires. These were removed and replaced without so much as a drop of water having flowed through them.
“Leave my minister alone,” Paul said. “Is not no PNM minister who buy dem pipe; I know dat fuh sure. I could call name but I wouldn’t. Do yuh research. Try between 2010 and 2015.
(Copyright Office of the Parliament 2021)
“The minister who was in power then mussee get dem cheap, because he buy dem by the shipload. Deh definitely didn’t come from America or England; deh mark Xinxing.”
Bobby and I looked at each other. We knew he was right. We had taken the trouble to check. We had seen ‘Xinxing pipes’ clearly marked on them.
“Maybe deh use some ah what he buy, eh, I doh know,” he continued. “But plenty ah dem ent use, I know dat fuh sure. Up here in Lillian Heights is not de onliest place yuh go find dem lying down in bush or in de open doing nutten.”
(via WASA)
“So whaiz de story?” I asked. “Why deh clearing de land? When we suppose to hear de first drops ah water falling dong inside the tank?”
“To tell yuh de trute, I wish I coulda tell yuh dat,” he responded. “I mihself trying to find out.”
“Well,” Bobby finally found his voice, “look at the condition of this road. One thing we can be sure of is that there’s not going to be any formal commissioning—he straightened an imaginary tie around his neck—of this project. No government bigwig coming up here for a photo op with the road in this state.”
(via Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts)
“And no govament spending good taxpayers’ money to fix this road,” I added my voice, “just for a photo op!”
“Govament doh waste money!” Bobby stressed before inquiring earnestly, “So what you think is happening here? Your hymn claimed the tank is a ‘emblem of suffering and shame’.”
“Well, what yuh want mih to say?” Paul asked, shrugging impotently. “I arkse everybody I know in WASA and nobody could tell mih nutten. I even arkse the councillor, who suppose to know. No luck.”
“What your minister saying?” Bobby inquired.
“And yuh minister?” I asked simultaneously.
“A friend tell mih he investigating,” he replied. “He go get back to me any day now.”
He took a deep breath, twisted the cap on his head first one way and then the next.
“Buh me eh stupid…” he began. “Leh we start with Lillian Heights.”
He continued after a pregnant pause, counting the names on his fingers. “[…] Then yuh have The Foothills. Trestrail Lands. Pampellone Villas. La Florissante. You know how much money you could make if…?”
Another pregnant pause to hold up the five fingers he had counted.
“…if you get a contract to supply truck-borne water to only dem developments?”
Whistling softly, Bobby stared wide-eyed straight at me.
“Thousands of dollars for sure!” I said, sotto voce. “Maybe more! Millions?”
“So,” Bobby said slowly, “if he’s not careful, Marvellous Marvin might be biting off more than he could chew!”
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Columns that say that, after Covid has done its worst, we’re grateful
to be still here and be able to get out of bed early to heed the poet’s
Carpe diem injunction and, savouring all the day’s blessings, mine
those banal, random, ordinary, routine, unspectacular, run-of-the-mill,
early-morning thoughts and conversations we often engage in.
