THE four major components of the US$15M East Demerara Water Conservancy (Hope Canal Project), are near finished, as measures are in place to ensure completion as soon as possible.The disclosure was made Wednesday by Head of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth, during an interview with the Chronicle at his office located at the Ministry of Agriculture.

Wordsworth said the project comprises four components: the channel itself which connects the conservancy to the Atlantic Ocean; the head regulator which controls the flow of water from the conservancy into the channel and farther into the Atlantic; the public road bridge and the high level discharge sluice.
“The head regulator and the super-structure are completed,” he said.
However, the scour protection at the structure is 98% completed, while the remaining two percent is being withheld. This is because project officials want the excavated material which forms the embankment to be drained and consolidated to an acceptable level, before they put the final metre of gabion baskets, which are readily accessible on site.
Apart from that, “The embankment from the conservancy to the high-level sluice and to a distance beyond the high-level sluice onto the foreshore has been completed also,” declared the NDIA head.

WORKS ON EMBANKMENT
What’s left in terms of the embankment, he disclosed, is a trench crossing which is a Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) service line that runs from East to West, that GWI has to relocate. After that, the final few metres of embankment would be completed which is expected to take only two days.
Moving forward, Wordsworth said the gate is in place; the electrical panels and generators to operate the gates have already been installed and the gates have been tested in its vertical position.
He also alluded to the fact that heavy rainfall over the past few weeks had caused the accumulation of water in the channel, which they have chosen to hold in a first phase of allowing the channel to be filled with water above its berm level.
Project officials have been advised by the engineers to hold the water for the days ahead, as it will give them an indication as to whether or not any seepage would develop.
Meanwhile, when asked about intervention by the new Minister of Agriculture, Noel Holder, he said, “The minister has been briefed on the progress of the project and had only recently conducted a brief site visit to the high-level discharge sluice.”
Following his visit, according to Wordsworth, the minister said that it is not ready for its full use, because of the trench crossing, the contractor’s works on the high-level discharge sluice and the placements of the gabion baskets and so forth must be completed, subsequently making the entire channel ready for full operations.
“As I’ve said before, the contractor Courtney Benn, has to expedite what he has been doing, because he has completed all the super structure and there were some delays with the recent rainfall, but there has been a break in the weather over the past two days and we have urged him to complete the placement of those gabion rocks,” he said.

AIM
The US$15 M Hope Canal project, which is expected to be the answer to flooding in the Mahaica/Mahaicony/Abary (MMA) areas during rainy periods, would be operational as the rainy season sets in.
Residents in the MMA areas, over the years, have lost crops and livestock in floods during the rainy period. As seen in the past, when the Maduni sluice had to be opened to drain the East Demerara Water Conservancy, residents in the MMA area had had to battle a rise in the Mahaica Creek, making the completion of the Hope Canal something that is much needed.
The East Demerara Water Conservancy in the past had 10 discharge points, with three on the East Bank of Demerara discharging into the Demerara River; two at Mahaica; and five discharge points on the East Coast of Demerara – all leading to the Atlantic Ocean. Their closure made the Hope Canal an even greater necessity, in order to facilitate increased and direct discharges into the Atlantic.

By Navendra Seoraj