The fight continues against heavy rainfall

Dec 31, 2008 Features / Columnists

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As the New Year dawns there is a lot going on in the lives of the people, particularly those in the rural areas and in the shadow of the East Demerara Water Conservancy. The above normal rains have brought an accumulation of water on the land to the extent that some people are complaining that they are losing crops and livestock.
Using the experiences of 2005 the government spent millions of dollars to avert severe flooding. Today, it seems as if the expenditure was not enough because some communities have been affected due to historical levels of rainfall.
However, the situation would have been dire had there been no expenditure of such magnitude. People in the flood-hit communities are blaming the government although they were urged to be prepared. Some had refused the offers of relocation in some cases, moving from areas that are virtual reservoirs.
Of course one could understand the refusal to relocate, especially since some of the people have been living where they are for all their lives without experiencing constant flooding until recent years. People have even said that they never witnessed such accumulation of water, failing to realise that more people have taken up residence in their communities, along areas where waterways once flowed, and that there is something called global warming that has made draining by gravity flow redundant.
With the movement of the people, waterways were affected and at the same time, global warming is bringing silt to the mouth of the outfall channels thus affecting the drainage.
Today, in the farming communities along the rivers and creeks the situation is also dire because the rivers have already begun to overflow their banks and flooding the land.
Such effects are associated with climate change. In addition, according to reports received the rainfall for the current season has already surpassed that of 2005 which resulted in massive flooding.
Flooding during periods of rainfall has been nothing new in the riverain communities but the people always managed to help themselves by either making alternative drainage facilities some of which have been allowed to collapse largely because as the older people moved on, the younger ones moved away from the land.
The government knows that it must intervene so the decision has been taken to dredge a major waterway leading from the East Demerara Water Conservancy to the Atlantic Ocean. This multi-million-dollar waterway would pass through Hope, on the lower East Coast Demerara.
This decision springs from the fact that the dams of the conservancy are constantly threatened by the volume of water in the conservancy and should they collapse then the disaster would be unimaginable.
The conservancy is perhaps the most important source of surface water for the people in the capital without which there would be an even greater disaster. It has been there for a very long time and like any structure time impacts a toll.
The government has been spending money on shoring up the conservancy and on monitoring the volume of water in this giant reservoir.
However, from time to time when the rains are as heavy as they are now, the problems begin to surface. It has become a constant battle preserving the conservancy and at the same time, trying to avoid floods from an overflowing conservancy. It is also evident that much work has been done to increase the storage capacity of the conservancy which accumulated heavy rainfall and run-off from other highland areas.
No one can deny that the measures at flood alleviation have been successful because communities that were inundated a few years hardly have any water on the land. The pumps are working efficiently and effectively and although people in some areas continue to use the waterways as their garbage cans no one can say that the government is uncaring. It is constantly removing the household waste from the waterways.
It would have been better if the various local authorities had been more effective because they would have been in a position to appreciate the areas that needed greater attention.
But many of these local authorities are not functioning so the burden falls on the government to do the work of these local authorities.
The government is now having to take steps to ensure that these local bodies are revitalized. Two days ago it passed legislation to effect this decision and once more one can expect the critics to blame the government for this action. However, the very critics are silent over the non-functioning of these local authorities and the impact of the floods except when they find it necessary to blame the government for the floods.
The rains would be here for at least another three weeks and during this period millions of dollars would have to be spent correcting situations that exist.
It will also have to examine ways of helping the farmers affected by the floods.
The expenditure on health to combat flood-related ailments is almost unnoticed because for some reason the critics have failed to make the connection between flooding and illness. They are not blaming the government in this case.

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