The article captioned ‘Water shortage looms’ which appeared in SN of February 13 seems to be a misnomer, as a water shortage on coastal farms is already widespread and will seriously affect the economy. Cabinet Secretary Dr Luncheon, CEO Wordsworth of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) and others have stated that the dry weather spell being experienced by water users in coastal areas is caused by that well-worn phenomenon – El Nino. Instead of shifting blame, the cause should be laid fairly and squarely on poor management of the country’s water resources by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA)/NDIA.
Global climate changes have been causing havoc worldwide as is evident from a 12 year drought in SE Australia, heavy snowfalls in the eastern United States, severe flooding in China and on and on. Rainfall data in Guyana over the years indicate that periods of dry weather (and heavy rainfall) are to be expected and these could be predicted with reasonable accuracy if the data is professionally correlated and analysed.
Unfortunately, to carry out such an exercise, NDIA is not collecting the relevant data in a timely fashion, analysing them with rapidity and using the information to manage the country’s water resources efficiently and effectively. For example, apparent fears from recent floods and probably out of abundant caution, water levels in the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) have been kept exceptionally low without quantitative consideration of the volume of water which data, if collected, would have indicated what the requirements of the various users during a sustained dry spell were. Based on users’ needs and climatic considerations storage in the conservancy would have been kept at levels to satisfy predetermined drawdowns.
MoA/NDIA had expected the rains in November ’09, and as a result the water level in the EDWC was kept at a low elevation during December ’09. Unfortunately the rains never came as forecast, and therefore water storage in the conservancy was insufficient to meet the needs of its users. Belatedly, attempts were made to supplement storage in the EDWC by pumping water from the Mahaica River, but low base flows and overpumping caused salt water to creep upstream thereby polluting the fresh water flowing downstream at the extraction location. Hence, users are now faced with a situation which has been succinctly stated by Dr Luncheon, “If you don’t have any water then whether you like it or not, you can’t use it.”
The problems are basically the same with respect to the Tapakuma and Boerasirie conservancies. MoA/NDIA were late to predict this dry spell and hence they stumbled to provide farmers with the needed irrigation in a timely manner to prepare their fields. Many have already given up, since at dead storage level (DSL) in the conservancies the water is going nowhere as the systems have no hydraulic energy to create flows to the canals and eventually into the fields for crop preparation, and pumping from the rivers into the conservancies is unlikely to raise water levels substantially for gravity irrigation. As a result, a reduction in paddy production has been projected for year 2010, and this will have a serious effect on the growth of the economy and hence job creation.
Finally, MoA/NDIA should proceed urgently to conclude arrangements with the World Bank to get the Conservancy Adaptation Study started, since its findings will provide a blueprint for comprehensive strategic development and management of drainage, irrigation and flood control – water resources skills which are so evidently lacking.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan
