RAINWATER HARVESTING IN ARIPO

• Post by: admin
• Apr 15, 2022

During many engagement sessions with the Aripo Community, including monthly clean up exercises with the Aripo Police Youth Club, online and in-person meetings with the wider community and the community council, the AARP was made aware of the water supply challenges facing the community. Resulting from this awareness, the AARP began its efforts to alleviate the community’s water shortages and contacted the technical team from WASA’s North-East Operations Unit to conduct site visits to the community’s intake to assess how the supply of water to the over 2000 residents of the Aripo village can be improved.

Long term solutions entailed remodeling the intake, building a new intake, or improving the storage capacity of the intake. As this would take time, and require substantial finances, a short-term solution was sought as a means of supplementing the community’s current water supply, through the installation of a Rainwater Harvesting System. The Aripo Community Centre was chosen as the most appropriate location to place the Rainwater Harvester, as it was an easily accessible public building in the community with an already appropriate roofing and guttering system. The Community Centre also serves as an emergency shelter for natural disasters, thus equipping it with Rainwater Harvesters ensures water availability in the event of an emergency.

Meetings were held with the Councillor for the Heights of Aripo, Ms. Kerry-Ann Roberts-Kassmally of the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation (TPRC) and the community council in February 2022. The then President of the Aripo Community Council, Mr. Kevin Thompson, endorsed the project and committed the Community Council to maintain and supervise the use of the system once completed. The TPRC committed to provide the construction supervision and labour to complete the system. All building materials, inclusive of cement, gravel, tanks, and fittings were provided by the AARP.

Work on the construction of the system began on April 4th, 2022 and was completed on April 27th 2022. An existing 600-gallon tank, and the addition of 2 x1000 gallon tanks increased the maximum availability of water that can be stored to 2600 gallons, filled with both spring and rainwater. This will allow for water to be accessed in both dry and rainy season. The system has two tap outlets that will afford any member of the community access to the water under the supervision of the Community Council.