Government to ramp up sea defence monitoring with drone technology

Oct 13, 2020 News

Kaieteur News – The government is seeking to extend its shoreline monitoring through the use of drone technology. The drones will be used as an overhead watch to actively monitor Guyana’s sea defences, which include mangroves and seawalls. This was disclosed by Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill in a telephone interview with Kaieteur News yesterday.
Edghill went on to say that while this measure is being implemented, they will not be abandoning the regular practice of having rangers from the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) working assiduously on the grounds. He said that they will be restarting the cycle that was abandoned where rangers conducted physical inspections. According to Edghill, since human eyes are more likely to see deterioration taking place at the shorelines, there are chances that breaches can be combated from the onset.
The Minister stressed that when breaches are identified from the onset, it gives an advantage of being able to formulate emergency measures or even stop the breach altogether. Adding to that, with the proper surveillance of both drone technology and the rangers, efficient maintenance can be carried out on the mangroves, which will further strengthen Guyana’s sea defences.
The Ministry of Public Works is currently looking for suppliers for the drones and tablets necessary for the shoreline monitoring and has since put out invitations for bids.
Additionally, the PPP administration has been adamant on fixing breached sea defences. They previously stated that being resilient to climate change is of significant importance, thus strengthening Guyana’s sea defences is a top priority.
The most recent effort to fix sea defence breaches was the government’s move to fix the Dantzig Mahaicony sea defence that suffered a breach sometime last year. The breach was not major at first, but slowly paced works caused the breach to get worse over time.
Earlier this year, a contract of $352 million was awarded to BK International Inc. by the previous A Partnership For National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) government to seal over 500-meters of breached sea defence that resulted in massive flooding in several areas. It was stated that the contractor was not only moving at a slow pace but constant delays also caused more damage to occur at the sea defence.
A new breach later occurred at the very site, flooding Dantzig and neighbouring communities causing serious damage to homes, crop and livestock.
The contract was later handed to four new contractors; Toolsie Persaud Ltd, Collin Talbot Contracting, A&S General Contractors and M&B Construction, by the PPP administration; another $168M was expended to reduce the threats of flooding in Prospect and surrounding villages.

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