Dear Editor,
With extra heavy rains, with patterns of rainfall that may vary from what we knew, and with other factors that affect the entire coast including the city, flooding is more and more frequent. We country people have always had the ideal of preventing floods; we always believed that doing everything in time, not some things, but everything, would prevent flooding. We believed too that if we were surprised with a flood, even with precautions taken, due to unusual rainfall, the water should be gone in not much more than 48 hours.
Georgetown is a city, but one with many rural conditions. It was laid out with many canals, like the plantations in the same coastal belt. I am well aware of the heavy responsibility that rests on councils and other bodies that have water control duties. Often some authorities think of a favourite control and get it done, but leave other controls undone.
A missing factor too is knowledge. Decades ago when the villagers were heavily engaged in agriculture, every other person was a watchman for drainage. You walked along the trench or canal, looked at the weather and the water level and the amount of weeds in the waterway, and you were ready to spread an alarm or to discuss it with the representatives. Farmers or the Ranger would come home from the backdam (please note) and report that owing to weeds water was “backing up” in the upper reaches and that there would be trouble if it rained.
Some D&I engineers have been writing to the press and giving expert advice. I have tried to follow, for example, the discussion on the Hope canal. Decision-makers have a duty of carefully studying these opinions and not feeling challenged by them. Things like volume of water and rates of discharge can be calculated. In addition we have to know the nature of the terrain (soil) and the state of vegetation in the waterways, the state of the outfall channels, whether there are breaches in the conservancy dams, or stop-offs of earth or bush in the canals. A village lying between plantations, or connected by water with them would have to look out for flows of water from outside into its village system. In the sugar belt we had much experience of these sugar estate relief measures.
While active in the WPA, parliament, or in Dayclean we have seen cases in which the M&CC boasted of its “desalting” operations along canals. A particular canal in south Georgetown was often “desalted” from point A to point B. Yet the outfall channel was left severely alone so that the excess water could not flow easily into the Demerara River.
The following report taken from Demerara Waves suggests to me a state of panic:
“Coastal residents were Monday urged to be on the look-out for flooding and ensure that sluices and pumping stations are working on a timely basis and that waterways are cleaned and free of garbage.
“The Ministry of Agriculture’s National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) is urging residents in vulnerable low lying agricultural and residential communities to take necessary precautions to avoid flooding and water accumulation.
“Although the drainage sluices were opened at low tide and high- powered pumps continued to belch water into the river and sea; many places were flooded because the rains have not ceased since Sunday night.”
What can “residents” in low-lying areas do at this late stage to avoid flooding? Addressed to residents with no equipment or resources this is as good as an appeal to residents to avoid rainfall! To me it is an admission of official neglect.
In commercial Georgetown, pedestrians and vehicular traffic jostled to use the roadways because nearby garbage-clogged and silted up gutters have overflowed.
I have been reading that a group of citizens has been taking action on garbage in the city. Is there any official policy support for them?
It has been the opinion of some water engineers, or used to be their opinion that Georgetown was laid out to rely on a network of canals, some of which were blocked up.
Some months ago I wrote a letter about fire protection, but did not send it to the press. It argued that the rural areas are entirely without fire protection. There has been no change from the colonial condition here. We fought this issue in the forties and fifties and onward. I pointed this out in 1996 in ‘Year By Year Renewal,’ a village discussion proposal. I noted with regret that there were fires in several areas of late.
The authorities should not continue trusting to luck. At one time the official answer was that nearby estates could help. This has always been a non-answer.
When I saw that fire protection had been taken to the National Assembly, I eagerly read the report. It was not about fire protection, but about enquiry into fires after they take place. Even such required sittings were long neglected, however.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana.
