NDIA estimates August completion of $3.6B Hope Canal project

Jun 14, 2015 News

….as test conducted to reduce Conservancy levels

by Nicholas Peters
The $3.6B Hope Canal project along East Coast Demerara is estimated to be completed in August, following years of delays.
This is according to Head of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority

Hope/Dochfour channel of Hope Canal project as tests commenced yesterday morning.

(NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth, during the first test release of water into the Canal from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC), yesterday.
Speaking to media operatives on the site, Wordsworth explained that this year’s May/June rainy season has to be over before the project can be completed. “So some time in August, so long as we don’t have a prolonged rainy season,” said Wordsworth.
While on site at the eight-door high-discharge sluice at the Hope/Dochfour end of the structure, this publication observed a couple of excavators working along the channel. Wordsworth pointed out that after the rainy season the remainder of the works on the project should take about eight weeks to be completed.
As it stands right now, the NDIA official said that the test operations of the project should not bear any significant effect on the works yet to be completed. “Once we’re able to get the conservancy levels manageable again and we are out of the rainy season it is very easy

Eight-door sluice section of $3.6B Govt Project before yesterday’s tests.

for us to complete it.”
The entire $3.6B dollar project commenced in October 2010 under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration. The government at the time had targeted a two-year completion date but delays left the project behind schedule by three years with minor works to be completed.
Hope Canal was launched as an alternative canal in Demerara and a “long term solution” to the threat of flooding from the EDWC, which, in the past, was responsible for massive floods along the Demerara coastland.
In 2005, due to a breach in the EDWC, a flood devastated farmlands along the Demerara Coast. It is estimated that almost 30,000 hectares of farmlands line the EDWC.
Following threatening levels of the EDWC from excessive rainfall, the 10km canal underwent its first test run in an effort to relieve excessive water pressure within the conservancy. The highest levels of water as of yesterday, according to Wordsworth, stood at 58.25GD in the Conservancy Dam that was designed to be 59GD.
Normally at this level, Wordsworth explained, the NDIA would open the Lama and Maduni outlets to relieve pressure from the EDWC Dams. “We don’t want to do that because we believe that the outcome of that would have significant flooding and creates a downstream effect,” said the irrigation professional.
Wordsworth explained that the NDIA will “gradually” lift the levels in the channel thus relieving pressure from the conservancy and raising channel levels to 56GD. At this point he said that a complete assessment would be done on the process and that the channel level would be lifted to 57GD.
He noted that structures leading up to the Atlantic Ocean outpour would be part of the regulation.
After an assessment was made at the 57GD level, Wordsworth said the NDIA experts would determine whether to raise the levels to 57.5GD.
“It’s the first time we have water flowing through it and it’s important that we take these precautionary measures at these various levels to do an assessment of the entire facility as we go along,” said Wordsworth.
He emphasised that the whole objective of the test was to bring down the level at the EDWC to 58GD or less. The entire process commenced with a 25-foot wide and two-foot deep cut in the conservancy at the Head Regulator to allow water flow into the northern relief channel at the Hope/Dochfour Outfall point.
“We will continue to monitor the embankments to see if there is any significant settlement or seepage,” Wordsworth said. As of yesterday afternoon, Wordsworth reported that the test release proceeded smoothly with water levels in the conservancy dropping to 55.5GD.
The tests are scheduled to continue today.