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Only the Dutch can tell us what to do now
Dear Editor,
Nearly two years ago, I wrote a letter questioning the reduction of the size of our open drains in Georgetown, to widen the roads.
It seemed to me that the authorities were unaware that to solve one problem, they were creating another equally damaging one, since narrowing those drains was contrary to the principle which the Dutch used in making these canals. That size in the first place allows them to act as reservoirs to hold water between tides since we are below sea level and that water does not go out until the tide goes down.
I have the GuySuCo rainfall figures for over 80 years on all estates and to date global warming has not affected our rainfall significantly. All of these climate change experts extolling the rising oceans etc. on our inability to drain the city now, is only a distraction for us focusing on our main problems which is bad planning and especially very poor enforcement.
Policing in Guyana is very poor. So, our kokers have been turned into a parking lot for numerous small fishing boats. Editor if you are in charge, for a few fishermen to interfere with the drainage of an entire city, thereby flooding thousands and so are frequently destroying millions in property, is totally insane.
But the fact is that the parking of these boats in the outfall channels [the channels between the kokers and the river or ocean] is definitely restricting drainage, there is no question of that in my mind.
There is one fact which has been evident to me for a long time, and it is that the oceans are indeed rising and so it MUST be affecting the low tide levels. It is unreasonable to expect that the high level will rise and leave the low level at the same height it was 30 years ago. So we MUST know that the amount of time being allowed to drain through the kokers are getting less and less, since the land level is not rising but the low tide water level is rising, so, IT MUST be affecting the period per day of our gravity drainage, i.e. the amount of time per tide when these kokers can remove the rainfall water.
Georgetown is 20 square miles according to the professor Google, so now we have to drain that area through structures which were not PROPERLY maintained, we are deliberately removing our capacity to hold water, exacerbated by many restrictions such as: 1. people dumping garbage into the drainage canals; 2. badly maintained and policed outfall channels 3. A rising ocean affecting the amount of time per day when we can expect tidal drainage. So, what’s the sense of making the internal drains smaller and incapable of holding any water between tides when we cannot drain escapes me. Then I see the pumps that these geniuses are putting in to supplement the drainage of the kokers.
Editor, if one inch of rain falls on 1 square miles of land, that is 17.4 million gallons of water so we are talking about removing 348 million gallons of water but recently I understand that one there were 3 and 4 inch days of 3-inch rain so now we are talking about over 1 billion gallons of water in 5 or 6 hours because we have reduced the amount of water we can store, which in turn means that we must now pump it out. In three days of April 2026 10 inches of rain fell. Our efficiency of drainage is to have the drainage capacity, in our housing areas, capable of removing 2 inches [49 MM] every 24 hours. Any flooding when less than 49 MMs per day shows bad drainage. Those pumps are too small. We need 3 ft diameter pumps, not the smaller ones I see being installed for some very fancy prices.
I’m not saying that I think that we have to build a system which is capable of removing 6 inches [147 mm] of rain a day [24 hours] since to maintain n such a system would be prohibitively expensive, I’m saying that to my mind the current design of removing 2 inches [49 MM] in 24 hours is complete compromised by the restrictions I have herein identified. And that the drainage systems of city of Georgetown and indeed elsewhere along the coast are absolutely not functioning as designed.
If I had to resolve this problem myself, I’d bring engineers from the Netherlands to give me some help in this situation. Only the Dutch can tell us what to do now.
Regards,
Tony Vieira
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