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AFC assesses flood situation in Black Bush
…gov’t belatedly clears outfall
By Leon Suseran
Executive Members of the Alliance for Change (AFC) on Sunday visited the flood- prone farming community of Black Bush Polder in the wake of recent flooding caused by heavy rains over the past weeks. But even though the worst may be over, a lot of the farmers are still counting their losses as a few areas are still under a bit of water.
Politicians Nigel Hughes, Gerhard Ramsaroop and Charrandass Persaud along with regional AFC officials toured Yakusari, the affected polder where they listened to the concerns of cash- crop farmers among others.
According to Hughes, “The treatment meted out to the people of this district, particularly the cash crop and rice farmers, absolutely poor drainage, the flooding—kids cannot get to school and have to walk in a foot, 18 inches of water…everybody that I have spoken to has lost some money as a result of cash crop damage.” He stated that the residents have complained about a blocked up outfall at Number 43 Village, which they blamed for the excessive flooding.
“And the treatment they received from the government….this is a problem that has been perpetual and has occurred annually and the farmers feel that they have been abandoned and there’s nobody to speak for them, and when they intend to speak for themselves, they are treated with disdain,” Hughes stated.
According to Hughes, other concerns raised include the quality of roads built in the community.
“There is very sad situation where a man has his commercial vehicle under his house and he can’t get it out because the road has been flooded. So for three weeks, he has been unable to conduct any sort of business.”
The AFC, Hughes said, will do a couple of things to help the farmers.
A farmer talks to AFC’s Nigel Hughes about the flooded main access street into the residential area of Yakusari.
“Maintenance is first of all, one of the major contributors if they maintain the outflows, the drains and if people don’t burst the damns for their own personal use…there have been complaints that a high official burst the dam just so that he can get water into the farms and flood the area—that is what we will do, to advance this agenda in parliament and out of parliament and the farmers that have suffered immense losses, we will be pursuing legal remedies that they have.”
The Number 43 outfall has been cleaned over the past week and the situation has been back to some sort of normalcy. However, there is a bit of water in some parts of the lands in Yakusari.
Regional Chairman of Region 6, David Armogan blamed the accumulation of water on the low density of the land in the two polders. “Over the last three weeks, there was a drought condition at BBP and the farmers were clamouring for water for their rice crops, so we had water pumping for 24 hours at our station in Black Bush. After a while, our system became primed with water so that the farmers can access water—and then the rains came down suddenly—and because the system was primed and, with little rainfall, there were overflows into the system,” the Regional Chairman explained.
The Number 43 outfall, the major drainage outfall for the two polders, Yakusari and Johanna, he said, “had silted up greatly over the dry season. In every dry season, you find that there is heavy siltation at these outfalls.”
He added that the tender was out for the excavation for all the outfalls, which fall under the purview of the National Drainage & Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and “two days ago, the award was made.”
Armogan said that a contractor in Berbice was given the contract to clean the outfall but could not mobilize his equipment in a timely manner. Consequently, the job was given to another contractor.
Responding to criticisms and questions as to why the government has waited this late to excavate the drainage system, Armogan said, “when you excavate during the dry weather, and you do not open the sluices, then water doesn’t come through and after three or four days, the kokers are silted up—as you dig they silt up—and it doesn’t make sense…and so that is the explanation why we had to wait for some amount of rain or water to get into the system, so we can flush it.”
“We do have an obligation to take it off the ground, so we will get the water off the ground and relief is in site for farmers of Black Bush Polder.”
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