Hope Canal groundbreaking still ‘weeks away’

Aug 03, 2010 News

The Minister of Agriculture has said that his agency is weeks away from breaking ground on the Hope Canal.
The statement came after the Ministry issued a call to fill the supervisory contracts on the project. Tenders were also requested for the maintenance and servicing of excavation machinery to be used in the Hope Canal Project by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA).
According to Minister Robert Persaud, who commented on Sunday via telephone, all of the preliminary design works as well as the technical evaluations have been completed. The next step, he says, will be the beginning of the excavation after the supervisory contracts are settled. In early April, however, the Minister stated several times that the excavation works would have been underway in a matter of weeks.
Four months later, the proposed excavation works are still ‘weeks away’. Asked to comment on the reason for the delay, the Minister noted that the weather has adversely impacted the NDIA’s ability to get the excavation underway.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the recent spate of flooding in a number of inland communities, the Head of the Ministry’s Hydrometeorological Service, Bhaleka Seulall, has warned that the rains are expected to continue until mid-August.
Less than a month ago, the NDIA released a statement saying that excess water is being released from the conservancies.
In the release, the agency pointed out that the water level had gone past the Conservancy’s full capacity forcing officials to release water into the Demerara River in an effort to reduce stress on the dams.
The Hope/Dochfour Canal is the Ministry’s $3B solution to the drainage issues facing East Demerara and West Berbice, which were found to be very vulnerable to flooding in January 2005.
After the record amounts of rainfall that the country received that year, Persaud pointed out to Parliament in June that every year since 2005 the water levels at the conservancy have exceeded the maximum safe limit.
He was at the time attempting to justify the cost and necessity of the Canal to the National Assembly. At that point in time, he also noted that if there had been just 6cm or little over 2.5 inches more of rain in January 2005, the dams at the Conservancy would have given way and the damage suffered by the low-lying areas of the coast would have been catastrophic.
A draft report jointly issued by the consultants CEMCO/ SRK’N and Mott McDonald last December suggested that the proposed design – a High Level Foreshore Discharge consisting of a shallow outfall channel and a high crested weir (dam) would be the best option to drain water out of the Conservancy.
After the release of the report, various agencies and members of the public were invited to evaluate the document.
According to a letter written by Omadatt Chandan, Corporate Secretary of the NDIA and published in this newspaper on April 19, 2010, “… an intense review was carried out by both local and international experts inclusive of the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE) who have studied carefully and examined the report in finalising the design for the new infrastructure.”
However an article published in the Stabroek News on July 28, 2010 takes the GAPE review of the draft report further and states that, “Several experienced engineers and even the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE), however, have suggested that there may be cheaper and more efficient alternatives for draining the conservancy.”
According to Persaud, the NDIA will be undertaking the works with their fleet of 14 excavators in an effort to reduce the costs of the project. Meanwhile, the contracts for the civil works such as bridges and culverts are currently being prepared; the Minister indicated that he had no estimate when this part of the project might get underway.

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