Dear Editor,
In SN of December 17, 2008, Mr Royston King, PRO to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) wrote an epistle to the citizens of Georgetown captioned ‘The citizens of Georgetown need to see the environment differently,’ in which he stated his views on the causes for flooding and poor drainage in the city over the past few days but skirted the issues of management and operation of the city’s drainage system which evidently have been neglected and have led to severe flooding in many parts of the city whenever heavy rainfall occurs.
For the past several years M&CC has been using climate change, garbage dumping and lack of resources as excuses for doing very little with respect to capital improvement, effective management and operation of the city’s drainage system.
The result is regular flooding, and now Mr King comes up with more novel causes for the flooding − the environment and those squatters living on city lands under squalid conditions. Mr King further claims that the drainage capacity in the city can only facilitate two inches of rainfall over a given period, a statement which is loose and vague with no data to justify such a claim.
Georgetown has become the victim of urban sprawl and its drainage system has not expanded to cope with the additional areas under its jurisdiction. To compound the drainage problem, the cross-sectional areas of many existing drains have contracted over the years, and natural retention areas have disappeared due to development. Hence the drainage system does not have much storage capacity to prevent over-spilling into adjacent low lands and the streets during periods when the tide is high and the sluices closed. Therefore pumps have to be installed with sufficient capacity to get rid of this excess water when the sluices are closed to prevent spilling into low-lying areas. The pumps will also supplement the sluices to get rid of excess water when the tide is low during heavy downpours.
The dumping of garbage in the drains is not going to stop any time soon. Therefore maintenance crews should be deployed to critical junctions to clear the main drains of all obstructions to allow for the free flow of water to the sluices and pumps. Mr King claimed that non-biodegradable materials have been damaging pumps at Princes Street and elsewhere. Properly designed grates should prevent unwanted material reaching the pumps’ impellers to cause damage. Of course workers have to be deployed to clean the grates at regular intervals to allow for the free flow of water to the pumps.
If the existing city’s drainage system is managed and operated efficiently and effectively, much of the flooding now being experienced could be avoided. Pumps cannot be down during the rainy season for want of needed spare parts and or fuel. Similarly all main drains must be cleared of silt, grass and debris. M&CC may well argue that it does not have the resources to carryout the necessary operation and maintenance of its drainage system at the required level. This may well be, but there are reasons to believe that a large segment of the city’s tax dollars is spent on administration and very little is left for drainage, road repairs, garbage collection and other essential services. Mr King could enlighten the citizens as to how the revenue pie is divided for these services, percentage wise.
Finally, Mr King stated that citizens need to allow space for the natural environment for better drainage. Most of the drains in Bel Air Park have not been cleaned for over twenty years and the citizens are puzzled as to whether this was intentional in order to promote a healthy natural environment or a sign of gross neglect. Similarly most of the roads in this community have not been maintained for the past twenty-five years, and some of the potholes are so large that residents need boats to navigate through them during the rainy season.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan
