Poor soil conditions could halt the Hope/Dochfour Canal Project

Oct 09, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Government may have to abandon the Hope Project on account of the poor soil conditions existing between Crown Dam and the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC).
I refer to an article in Kaieteur News dated October 3, on the subject “$3 Billion Hope/Dochfour Canal begins” and to a statement from the lead consultant from CEMCO stating that the terrain between Crown Dam and the EDWC is creating serious problems for the consultants and further stated that the drilling rig keeps sinking in the soil.
If a lightly loaded drilling rig can sink on its own in the pegasse soil what will happen to the trucks transporting the heavy selected soil material to the site to build the dam? You will have to build a concrete roadway supported on piles to transport the trucks. There is no guarantee that machines working on timber mats will not sink as well. Previously, a sluice being built on this same type of pegasse material many years ago, material floated away during construction.
The Consultants’ proposal as well to use a geotextile material between the dam and the pegasse sub soil to increase its strength is also questionable.
Even the consultants expressed some concern on their web site not knowing how the two will interact. It has never been used before on pegasse foundation material. In engineering it is better to be safe than sorry afterwards.
If there were a failure in the dam the result could be catastrophic.
A portion of the dam in the MMA was built on pegasse, but it was designed and built differently. It is still in good condition some 30 years later.
I had previously written two letters to SN warning about the soil in this area. In the 70’s the Hydraulics Division attempted to carry out drainage works in the Nabacilis Area and abandoned the work on account of the above stated poor soil conditions.
It is a shame that such an expensive project was embarked upon without the consultants first carrying out preliminary surveys and soil exploration to determine its viability before embarking on modeling works inside the EDWC and elsewhere – costing millions.
Under the circumstances it is for the Government to decide how they want to proceed.
M. Alli

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