THE gates of the eight-door sluice, one of four components on the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) Northern Relief Channel, Hope Canal, will be installed this week, according to Agriculture Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy.He made the disclosure during a press briefing yesterday, when he also assured that the Hope Canal project will be completed by the end of the month.
“Right now we are building the control room for the outer sluice, given that the eight doors will not be manually opened, but automatically controlled,” he said, adding that there are some other minor works on the eight-gate sluice at the canal’s Atlantic end, the outer sluice, to be done.
The project’s other three components include the more than 10-kilometre channel; the head regulator; and the EDWC Northern Relief Channel Public Road Bridge. The latter was completed and commissioned in February.
Dr. Ramsammy told the media that the head regulator is almost completed, with only one aspect of work to be done – the installing of the control wench.
On the issue of the channel, he explained that sections of the channel were left untouched, to allow for residents in the nearby areas to be able to use these sections to access residential areas.
According to him, bridges will have to be built once the channel is completely dug, and aside from these, over several years, the dams will have to be subject to landscaping works, to allow for the sections to ‘settle’.
Additionally, the actual testing of the functionality of the channel will have to await the availability of an adequate volume of water to fill the channel.
The contractor for the project is Courtney Benn Contracting Services.
Construction on the project began in February 2011, with an estimated 18 months for completion, and the deadline for the project was initially set for June 2013, but was subsequently extended to the end of August, and then once again extended to December 31, 2013, then to June 30, 2014.
The EDWC Northern Relief Channel, the Hope Canal, which missed its June 30 deadline for completion, was given a new deadline in the latter part of July, when its completion was raised at the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Natural Resources and the Environment. The Agriculture Minister, when he appeared before the Committee, disclosed that the project will be completed in seven weeks, by September. However, this deadline has also passed due to unforeseen challenges.
The Minister, in a prior comment, stated that given the continued delays with the project, the issue of liquidated damages is not off the table. “The accommodation of the contractor does not mean that the contractor will escape liquidated damages,” he said.
However, Dr. Ramsammy made it clear that the liquidated damage will not be “inflicted” on the contractor as of now, since that would mean a further delay, as late as 2015, for the completion of the project.
The Agriculture Minister stressed too the quality of work produced by the contractor has been quality work.
He added, “Some of the difficulties that the contractor has encountered can be resolved by the ministry, and so all we are doing is working in partnership with the contractor so that those difficulties are removed.”
Indications were that the US $15M Hope Canal project, which is expected to be the answer to the flooding experienced in the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary(MMA) areas during rainy periods, would be operational as the rainy season sets in. Residents in the MMA area over the years have lost crops and cattle in floods, during the rainy period. As seen in the past, when the Maduni sluice has to be opened to drain the East Demerara Water Conservancy, residents in the MMA area have to battle a rise in the Mahaica Creek – making the completion of the Hope Canal something that is much needed.

(Vanessa Narine)