Newly US$6.6M damaged Black Bush Polder Road…Engineer blames “illegal” weight

Apr 28, 2014 News

After being completed in November 2012, parts of the US$6.6M Black Bush Polder Road have already started to deteriorate.
In a recent interview, Civil Engineer attached to the Public Works Ministry, Sunil Ganesh, blamed the deterioration of the road on illegal weight limits.

The current condition of the Black Bush Polder Road

“That’s the problem. We designed the plan for the road based on the legal weight limit, but now, most of the trucks in Black Bush Polder have an extra cab at the top. We never catered for that, so it’s causing some problems there.”
Even though the road was constructed for farm to market purposes, Junior Finance Minister, Juan Edghill, during his 2014 visit, said that he was displeased with the weight being transported on the structure. It was noted that the road was designed for 32-ton trucks, but has been forcefully enduring more weight.
“What we have observed is that the trucks operating in the polder, mainly single-axle trucks, all of them which I have seen, carried with them, extension in the trays and that would have meant they are carrying greater weight than they were supposed to be carrying,” the Government Minister had said.
He added, “Double axle tonnage in a single axle truck could pose weight problems for the road.”
Additionally, Ganesh noted that the road being used by combine operators is also posing a problem. “The thing is, when the combines go to the rice field and come back out, the mud sticks to the asphalt. And there is a problem there, because when the mud sticks, the asphalt comes off. It pulls it off…this was happening during construction too,” Ganesh said.
Indeed, roads have to be maintained, but should this situation at Black Bush Polder continue, that particular road would have to be repaired more often. As part of a two-year liability and defects agreement, BK International would be responsible for the maintenance of the structure until November 2014.
However, after this, the Government of Guyana, via the aforementioned Ministry, will have to invest in keeping the road in a good condition.
When asked, Ganesh said that given the situation, plans would be revised to have a somewhat permanent solution to ensure that the 34.5-kilometer-long structure would not have to be repaired regularly, as is the case now.
According to Ganesh, these works would be budgeted for in 2015, after agreement with BK International would have expired, and the company would no longer be required to maintain the road.
The entire Black Bush Polder Road project includes the erection of about 10 bridges and installation of 90 culverts.
Ganesh said that while the width of the road was initially designed to be 14 feet, this was redesigned and increased to become 20 feet.
Kaieteur News understands that the road was constructed with 12 inches thickness of recycled road material without cement, and six inches of stabilizing material. The roadway also has close to two inches of asphalted concrete surface.
The Civil Engineer estimated that before the construction of the road, it took approximately one hour to get from one end of Black Bush Polder to the other. As of now, he noted, this journey takes about almost half that time.
“I traveled there, and it saves time significantly,” Ganesh maintained.