With $2 billion spent and about 75% of the channel for the Hope Canal completed, the Ministry of Agriculture anticipates that all works will be completed in the next nine months, by June 2013.
“This project is proceeding. It has suffered some challenges… for various reasons but we are now ensuring that the work is completed on a timely basis. The deadline we are working with is June and there is a period that is always built in for whatever… and then the defect/liability period which will take us into December of next year,” said Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy during a tour of the canal yesterday.
Less than 1 km remains to be dug at the southern end of the 10.3 km canal to meet the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) and this will be completed by the end of October, Chief Executive Officer of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth said. Eight excavators were seen working during the visit yesterday amid the flat pegasse soil and Ramsammy praised the work of local engineers for defying critics who said they would not have been able to work on the soil type. “The workers are showing it can be done,” he said.
Wordsworth said that about $2 billion have thus far been spent. “There is less than one kilometre to go towards the conservancy and less than one to go towards the approach (at the northern side),” Ramsammy said. He said the head regulator at the EDWC, the bridge over the East Coast highway and the sluice at the Atlantic Ocean are all supposed to be finished in June.
Work has also begun on the eight feet high embankment that will line both sides of the canal. Asked about drainage and irrigation infrastructure for farmers, Ramsammy said there is irrigation but they will have to create drainage canals on both sides and this will have to be done when the canal is completed. The width of the entire canal inclusive of the embankment is about 300 feet.
With regard to the bridge that will span the canal as part of the East Coast Demerara highway, Ramsammy said that it is about 34% completed and much of the structures are already pre-cast. “Much of these things are already constructed. It’s a matter of assembling at this point,” he said. Yesterday, pile driving was going on and this was said to be the most difficult part. “Once this part of the work is done then the rest is very quick,” Ramsammy said. Dipcon is constructing the bridge.
In relation to the eight-gate sluice to drain the water into the Atlantic Ocean being constructed by Courtney Benn Contracting Services, Ramsammy said that one of the problems experienced was the availability of piles but they have most of these now. He said the contractor needs to finish the work by the end of November. “If they finish by the end of November they will be able to finish the work [in time for June] because that is the major part of the work,” he said.
He also added that he had concerns over this and said that the contractors need to double up and take advantage of the good weather because bad weather had hampered work in the past.
Meantime, he said that work at the head regulator at the EDWC by BK International is proceeding at a good pace and that will be finished in time for June.
The $3.6 billion canal, when completed, is expected to help drain the EDWC into the Atlantic Ocean. Currently when the water reaches a high level in the EDWC, water is drained through the Maduni and Lama sluices into the Mahaica and Mahaicony creeks resulting in overtopping and flooding in these areas.
