…residents get medical, other aid

By Svetlana Marshall

FLOOD waters in West Coast Berbice, Region Five have begun to recede, even as plans are being put in place to deploy four additional irrigation pumps to the affected areas and optimize the capacity of the ‘problematic’ Trafalgar Pump Station.Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday led a high-profile team to West Berbice, where on-the-spot assessments were conducted in the flood- affected villages.

He was accompanied by Minister of Citizenship, Winston Felix; Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Karen Cummings; and the Public Infrastructure Ministry’s Chief Engineer and Community Coordinator, Walter Willis and Neilson McKenzie respectively.

With them were other regional representatives, technicians and engineers. Following a thorough assessment of the Trafalgar Pump Station, where the sluice is currently inoperable and the outfall channel is silted up, Ministers Ramjattan and Felix ordered that immediate remedial works be executed.

At the time of their arrival, only one of the four pumps was in operation. Two of the remaining three have been dysfunctional for more than two years, while the other one “conked-out” just yesterday morning.

However, by the time the ministers were ready to leave the district, the second pump had been repaired, and was in full operation.

Dredging of the outfall in the vicinity of Trafalgar was expected to commence last evening, with the arrival of the pontoon and dredge. Plans were also being made to have four irrigation pumps from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo) deployed to the district.

MEETING WITH RESIDENTS
During a meeting with residents of the affected villages — Golden Grove, Lovely Lass, Trafalgar, No. 29, Union and Lichfield — both ministers assured them that short and medium-term solutions would be put in place to bring them much-needed relief.

However, in a separate meeting with representatives from the Regional Democratic Council (RDC), the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary Agricultural Development Authority (MMA/ADA), Minister Ramjattan came to the conclusion that the drainage and irrigation system in West Coast Berbice villages were badly maintained.

Minister Felix observed that the floods were also as a result of the heavy downpours, coupled with the release of water from the rice fields. He said, too, that while the pump stations at Bush Lot and Abary are in full effect, the Trafalgar Pump Station has been unable to effectively pump water off the land, resulting in flooding.

Floods have not only brought much discomfort to residents, but damage to property, and even loss of poultry.

However, Minister Felix emphasised that the government will put short and long-term plans in place to prevent flooding in these areas.

“The short-term plan will ensure that the pumps are working, and that the outfall is kept dredged,” he explained, adding that in the longrun, the government will put systems in place to have the entire drainage system in the connecting villages.

SHEER NEGLIGENCE
During the outreach, the MMA/ADA came under attack by residents who complained bitterly about the authority’s alleged neglect of duty. According to the residents, it was negligence on the part of the MMA/ADA that contributed to the flooding.

But MMA/ADA Manager, Aubrey Charles refuted those claims, saying that on the contrary, the Authority has been doing its best to mitigate flooding in the area.

He explained that under normal circumstances, the doors of the sea sluices are often opened to keep the outfall channel clear of silt, but that this process was severely affected by the just-concluded dry spell. Noting that the Trafalgar Pump Station was the one mostly affected, Charles said: “There was not enough water in the drainage system to open the sluice door to flush the silt from the outfall channel.”

Charles said when the rains came in late April, the Authority could not have opened the sluice door at Trafalgar, and that the two other sluices at Profit and D’Edward could not have drained the water from the residential areas, nor the irrigation water from the rice fields, resulting in flooding.

Their only alternative, he said, was, with the help of the NDIA and RDC, to deploy three mobile pumps, six tractor-operated pumps and a number of excavators to the villages of Golden Grove, Lovely Lass, Trafalgar, No. 29, Union and Lichfield.

NDIA Senior Engineer, Dave Hicks assured the ministers and regional councillors that every effort is being made to drain the water off of the residential lands.

Hicks said while short-term plans are being put in place, the NDIA, in its 2016 Budget, has set aside $29M for the rehabilitation of one of the two electrical pumps at Trafalgar that became dysfunctional approximately two years ago.

He explained that it would cost the NIDA approximately $46M to repair the two pumps, and that as such, a decision was taken to repair only one. That pump is expected to be completed before the start of the next rainy season.