Measures are in place to minimize flooding

Dec 12, 2008 Features / Columnists

The rainy season is here, and in various parts of the country, people are reporting sporadic flooding, either because some water has accumulated in their yards, or because canals have overflowed.

But the occurrence of a major flooding, as was the case in 2005 and to a lesser extent in 2006, is remote, because the Government has taken time to ensure that the waterways are cleared of weeds and other natural obstacles.

This is a monumental task, because the weeds and other natural obstacles keep coming back, because Guyana is a tropical country and such things thrive in the environment. Guyana is naturally green, very agricultural, so the Government must always keep working to get rid of unwanted vegetation.

At one time, in certain canals, manatees were introduced, and they managed to keep the canals clear and free of weeds, all of which provided food for the aquatic mammals. But people ensured that such a programme did not succeed along the coast. They captured and killed the manatees.

In retrospect, it would have been so much cheaper to allow the manatees to roam in the trenches and canals, because the money now being spent to clear these very waterways would have gone towards providing some valuable service to the country. At last count, the expenditure for this year was $1.7 billion, which is by no means a small sum of money.

But there is more to the blocked waterways. People, despite the pleas and the warnings, keep using the waterways as garbage bins. The experiences of 2005 seem to have long disappeared, because this has been the case in many communities.

Construction workers have also been guilty of this blockage of the waterways, because they, too, rather than have a container at their disposal to place any waste material, simply drop them where they may, and some end up in the waterways. It is not unusual for the cleaners to encounter construction materials in the drains.

Some contractors even blocked waterways to construct bridges leading to their new construction sites. Sometimes they clear the blocked drains at the end of their construction works; but more often than not, they leave the blocked drains, and when the rains come, problems abound for the people who live in the vicinity, and even further away.

The Mayor of Georgetown, Hamilton Green, has been complaining about a construction that he says has blocked a drain in the city and has affected residents to the east of the supposed blockage.

Of course, the contractor has denied any such thing. But the fact is that people have noticed that the water is taking longer to run off, so they conclude that the contractor is at fault.

An inspection, however, would reveal that many of them have blocked drains in their neighbourhoods because they could not take the time to remove the weeds to have these drains dug to the specifications, so that they could help the water run off.

Some people, though, are keen to avoid flooding, and they do everything within their power to clear the waterways.

Be those things as they may, people should get accustomed to the idea that the coast is lower that the ocean that is being kept out by the seawall.

Under normal conditions, had the situation been the other way around, the water would have run off easily once the waterways were cleared, and there would have been no flooding.

In any case, given the situation that the country must face, the outfall channels have been cleared, so that when the tide falls and the kokers are opened, the water easily runs off the land.

No one can blame the Government for the water on the land, because the state of affairs is an inheritance. The Government, however, ensures constant inspections.

Ministers of the Government and other officials are visiting the various locations where flooding is likely to occur; and, where necessary, they immediately recommend solutions to any problem that may exist.

There are reports of malfunctioning pumps, and wherever these reports are accurate, measures are put in place to have these pumps repaired.

The Government is prepared to spend money to fuel the operation of these pumps, so there can be no question of an uncaring Government.

The weather man says that the rainy season is here, and he promises intense periods of rainfall. Sometimes, no sooner has the water run off than the rains come again and more water is collected on the streets and in the yards, which may be too low.

For now, the preventative measures have been completed at a cost of some $1.7 billion, money that the Government feels was wisely spent.

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