RALPH BAN­WARIE

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Peo­ple us­ing fire hy­drants to fill wa­ter trucks for re­sale could face ar­rest if they can­not prove they have per­mis­sion from the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, ac­cord­ing to Fire Ser­vice Of­fi­cer (FSO) New­ton Thomas.

Thomas said of­fi­cers could al­so seize ve­hi­cles and equip­ment used in the op­er­a­tion.

He is­sued the warn­ing dur­ing the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion Coun­cil Meet­ing at the San­gre Grande Po­lice Sta­tion con­fer­ence room on Tues­day, say­ing fire hy­drants across the dis­trict have been dam­aged by trucks draw­ing wa­ter.

Thomas said he un­der­stood some sup­pli­ers were fill­ing wa­ter trucks from hy­drants and sell­ing the wa­ter for about $400 per tank. He al­leged some op­er­a­tors might not have the re­quired au­tho­ri­sa­tion to ac­cess the hy­drants.

He warned that us­ing fire hy­drants with­out per­mis­sion is il­le­gal and those re­spon­si­ble could face ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion.

Thomas said con­trac­tors hired by the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to de­liv­er wa­ter to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the dry sea­son, must al­so have the nec­es­sary per­mis­sion to use fire hy­drants.

"So many trucks fill­ing wa­ter and yet peo­ple who is in dire need of wa­ter sel­dom en­joy this ser­vice," Thomas said.

He said the prac­tice has left many hy­drants dam­aged and leak­ing, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for fire­fight­ers to fill fire ten­ders when re­spond­ing to emer­gen­cies.

Thomas added that hy­drants are some­times left un­se­cured af­ter use, re­sult­ing in un­nec­es­sary wa­ter loss.

He al­so raised con­cerns that the San­gre Grande Fire Sta­tion re­mains with­out an am­bu­lance, which he be­lieves every fire sta­tion should have.

Thomas urged any­one us­ing fire hy­drants to do so care­ful­ly and en­sure they have the re­quired au­tho­ri­sa­tion.

Asked whether any­one had been ar­rest­ed so far, Thomas said no, but warned that au­thor­i­ties were pay­ing close at­ten­tion to the prac­tice.

"If truck dri­vers can­not pro­duce such doc­u­ments, then the nec­es­sary ac­tions will be tak­en," he said.

Vice-chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Coun­cil­lor Nas­sar Ho­sein, who at­tend­ed the meet­ing, said he was con­fi­dent the trucks con­tract­ed by the cor­po­ra­tion have the re­quired per­mis­sion to use the hy­drants.