The El Nino phenomenon currently being experienced countrywide has caused the water level in the East Demerara Water Conservancy to drop to a level below the lowest design safe level for irrigation.

The average water level in the conservancy is now 52.65 Georgetown Datum (GD), Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth says. He told this newspaper yesterday that the Lowest and Highest Design Safe Level for Irrigation are 53.50 GD (dead storage level) and 57.50 GD (full supply level) respectively.

Whenever the water level gets below 53.5 GD (dead storage level), Wordsworth explained, the flow of irrigation water by gravity becomes difficult through the irrigation intake structures constructed on the EDWC that feeds the irrigation network with fresh water to farmlands serviced by the EDWC.

“The conservancy needs to be re-charged with water above the 53.50 GD to fully satisfy the irrigation needs by gravity flow”, he explained. Wordsworth advised that farmers and all users utilizing fresh water from the EDWC conserve on the use of water, avoid wastage and not tamper with any structure that will affect the operation of the irrigation system.

He said that the NDIA has been conducting regular inspections of the conservancy and there is round-the-clock security and monitoring of the conservancy. He noted that in November, the NDIA had installed two hydro flow pumps to pump fresh water from the Maduni creek into the EDWC reservoir.