Blackout mars sporting spectacle in Linden, water woes return
By Cathy Wilson
Stabroek News
April 2, 2003
Hundreds of persons turned up at the Mackenzie Sports Club on Sunday for what has become a major sporting spectacle in the mining town - the Linden Cycling and Athletic Championship organised by the Linden Sports Foundation.
But their high expectations of a good time were short-lived as another prolonged blackout hit the mining town and poor lighting brought the event to an abrupt end.
Moreover, this new phase of blackouts has brought back water woes for Lindeners who must now trudge to springs and the river for their water supply.
Linden was plunged into total darkness from around 2 on Sunday morning when the motor bearings of the recently reconditioned boiler feed pump were burnt.
Residents said that it was only last week Saturday that they had full electricity restored in the community after a period of approximately two weeks of daily twenty-hour power outages.
Lindeners as well as scores from outside the community who turned up for the event expressed disgust at the current state of the power company.
One resident who is a businessman said that he is in the process of shutting down his operations in the mining town to return to Trinidad. “I thought that investing in the town where I was born was one thing this government would have been glad to have me do. But now everything is getting political and I just can’t get my finances involved any longer. I’m really sorry for the people of Linden but I just can’t continue on the losing end any longer.”
These comments were made while hundreds flooded the MSC ground hoping that the electricity company would have made some power available to the area considering that the sports event had been advertised repeatedly for some time.
The event which was scheduled to commence at 3 pm on Sunday had to be brought to an abrupt stop owing to poor lighting.
According to information reaching Stabroek News, when the power company developed the problem no alternative arrangements could have been put in place to supply residents with power on a load-shedding basis since the plant has only one operable diesel generating set.
That one generating set had to supply the contractors of the company, Linmine, as a specific LPC obligation.
According to reports, as a result of the motor failure it is not likely that power will return to the community within the next two to three days since the remedial works are extensive.
In addition, Linmine is in the process of loading a ship it has in dock so it is necessary that the bauxite company utilise the supply of electricity that is being generated by the lone operable diesel engine.
Efforts to elicit a comment from the Chief Executive Officer of Linmine Horace James and manager of the Linden Power Company Steve Bovell proved futile.
Meanwhile, as a result of the non-supply of electricity, Linden now faces a water crisis.
Since the water supply service was taken over by Guyana Water Inc. the water treatment lines were put on the residential power lines so whenever the power goes so does the water.
A walk through the streets of Wismar and Amelia’s Ward in particular reveals the extent of the water crisis as scores of children and adults could be seen at springs and the riverside seeking water.
Health personnel are at present concerned about the risk of a rise in cases of water borne diseases.
The town already has a high number of children coming down with water borne infections.
Another spin-off is that persons are being forced to stay away from the workplace or report late in order to fetch water.
Apart from general household and dry goods businesses, butcher shops are feeling the effects of the prolonged outages.
One butcher shop owner said that she had stocked her shop just last week Monday after being unable to sell for two weeks and was now forced to sell off her stock very cheaply to avoid spoilage.
But she and others point out that customers will be the ones to feel the full impact since whenever electricity becomes available the shops will be forced to hike prices to compensate for the earlier downturn.
