yesterday, delaying countless residents from having their tanks filled.

And Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott said the Prospect Pumps in Devonshire had shut down automatically because Bermuda's current water reserves were at "danger level''.

Anger erupts as water pumps shut down But angry water truckers last night blasted Government for what they called "poor maintenance'' of "inadequate facilities''.

Mr. Scott said: "The amount of water we deliver from the ground to the pumps is monitored by computers. When the wells are at danger level, which means extracting water after that would be doing damage to the land, they shut off automatically. That's what's happened here.'' The Works Minister said he would be holding a meeting with Bermuda's water truckers at 10 a.m. today so they could be properly briefed on the situation.

He added that a warning was issued to truckers to "monitor themselves'' and not pump too much water "but that seems to have been ignored''.

Mr. Scott explained that there was currently "a tremendous demand'' for water due to the dry spell and appealed to residents to "be as judicious'' as possible in their use of it and not to horde it.

Seven water trucks were at Prospect Pumps last night and had been there through the afternoon waiting for the water to begin flowing.

"We already had orders backed up from Monday and now this is just adding insult to injury,'' said trucker Johnny Eatherley.

"I've had people crying over the phone for water and now we're not going to be able to get it to them for even longer,'' he added. "We're losing customers.'' Mr. Eatherley said he felt the fault had come "because the facilities aren't checked up on enough by Government''.

Another trucker, Michael Simmons, said he felt the pumps were "just not big enough'' to handle the amount of water that the truckers needed.

Calvin Carmichael Jr., of Wilson's Action Water Service Ltd., described how the pumps seemed to be slowed up every Monday and Wednesday.

"Just think about how much time we have to keep our customers waiting if it's taking half an hour to fill up one truck and there are lots of trucks in line,'' he said.

"In the water business, time is the key word,'' Mr. Carmichael continued.

"My phone's ringing and ringing. This is the worst it's ever been.'' He suggested that Government construct more desalination plants to keep up with demands.

Mr. Scott said Government had recently been slowing the water flow down because "right now we are beginning to draw more water than we can catch''.

"If we didn't do that then we'd just be drawing the wells and reservoirs dry.

It's our responsibility to make sure we manage our resources well enough so we don't damage the land.'' WATER WAT wat