By M Margaret Burke

MANY people in Guyana have been thinking aloud about the condition of the Capital City in Guyana. They ask if Georgetown is sinking, mainly because of the way places are flooding and it is being touted about that places which never flooded before are now going under water.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Mr Frederick Flatts, in a recent interview with Guyana Chronicle said, “There are still a number of clogged drains. Many of the outfall channels are not cleared, people continue to use some drains as receptacles of solid waste, some drains just cannot be cleaned because there are people living alongside the drains, such as is the case in Front Road, Ruimveldt. So there are a number of reasons for the flooding.

He added that another reason is that people who have the financial means, tend to raise their yards, some of which have concrete, which tends to cause water to flow off from their yards and into others’ or onto the public road.

“Also compared with what is happening in Georgetown now, in terms of flooding, with what obtained, perhaps with 50 or 60 years ago, there are a number of drains that we had in Georgetown-  places like Main Street, Carmichael Street, Waterloo Street and Camp Street- where there are avenues. Those used to be channels, which were not filled. And so, whereas in times past, where they were used to store water in heavy rainfall, now there is no such storage,” he explained, saying that those are some of the reasons why we are having a lot of flooding in Georgetown.

 
The Light House
The issue of concern is whether or not Georgetown is sinking or whether Georgetown is getting lower, Mr Flatts said. “I don’t know and I am not aware that anyone really knows. The problem is that the levels in Georgetown are measured from a benchmark, which is the Light House; all the levels within Georgetown are governed from one level, which is the Light House. “So if you were to take levels at various points and by every year check the level to see what is happening, then it will be difficult if you are using the mark in the Light House because the Light House itself is in Georgetown, so Georgetown is sinking then the Light House itself is sinking, so you cannot use the Light House as a benchmark to check on Georgetown,” he said.

Flatts suggested that if persons really want to know whether Georgetown is sinking, then this would have to be done via satellites. “There are programmes that can be used to do that, where you decide that you want to take the level every six months – from fixed points around Georgetown and you do that over a number of years, then you could know whether or not Georgetown is sinking.”

The NDIA CEO asserted that the levels of land in Georgetown cannot be measured from the Light House to know whether there is any change because the Light House is in Georgetown and if the latter is sinking the Light House is also sinking. “It will reflect the same. In other words, if a particular part of Georgetown has gone down by three inches, the Light House itself would have also gone down by three inches, but there are ways to go around such checks. The most popular way is by way of satellite, which is outside the land,” Flatts offered.

In addition, the CEO said, Georgetown starts off with a limitation when there is a flood, in terms of draining the water, because there are two high tides and two low tides on a daily basis. “Unless you supplement the gravity area with a pump then you are not going to pump as much water as you want to.

High-rise buildings

He said too that even when flood water remains on the land for lengthy periods of time, all that will happen is that the water will infiltrate and percolate through the earth. “And even where there are concerns of heavy piles being driven down in the earth, especially in Georgetown for the construction of several storey buildings, it will not cause any drop in the city; where there is sandy soil and those piles are driven then there will be some small changes, but going through clay would not be a problem. Those buildings are supported on piles so as not even on the higher levels of the earth, except way down at the lower level,” he said.

Housing programme and the Conservancy

“In terms of the housing schemes, what we try to do in some cases, in Herstelling, Providence, Farm and so on, this year and next year we plan to do extensive drainage works. As a matter of fact, we have already started. We want to ensure that the people who go to live in those areas enjoy good drainage. So that’s what we are doing; we have contracts, not just for the housing areas, but at the back of those areas where there are farm lands, but of course people are living in front and we have to ensure their water is properly drained,” Mr Flatts assured.

The CEO, in his own modesty, said, “I am the officer-in-charge of the Conservancy and I want to ensure that there is no breach, so we don’t foresee any imminent breach of the Conservancy… Right now at the back of the Conservancy, there are about 12 excavators; three pontoons with excavators…we have enough equipment, even if there were to be a breach to stop it within a few hours – within four, five hours,” he said.

“And a breach doesn’t start large, it starts with a small part and gets bigger and bigger, so there is the imminent threat of that. As a matter of fact, we have a project going on there right now, where we are raising the level of the dam under the Flood Risk Management Programme, as well as the NDIA. We are covering a number of kilometres of the dam, which is making it safer. However, he said that if there is a lot of rain like there was in 2005, then there can be some amount of pressure. However, it is nothing that the NDIA is not prepared to handle, Mr Flatts assured.

“In the area right now as we speak, there are 12 excavators just working on it every day, so we are just getting safer every day…we are better prepared! Apart from having the Hope Canal right now, where we have pumps that can discharge millions of gallons of water from the Conservancy and on the East Coast, we have pumps at paradise; we have pumps at Plaisance, which are going to help; we have a lot of mobile pumps and we are simply better prepared,” the CEO declared.

“There is no need to fear. The East Demerara Water Conservancy embankment, which is parallel to the Demerara River, is far stronger than what it used to be. Historically, I think that there has only been one breach on the East Bank of Demerara. All that we have had was on the East Coast and this is being strengthened daily,” said Mr Flatts.

(mercilinburke2017@gmail.com)