Minister of Public Works Robeson Benn says the most recent rehabilitation and construction of groynes along the Kingston seawall doesn’t have anything to do with the nearby Marriott Hotel now under construction.
Benn told Stabroek News that it was mentioned to him that if work wasn’t done to strengthen sea defences along the Kingston seawall the Marriott construction could come to a halt. “If we don’t do it the Marriott will go away or some nonsense… this has nothing to do with the Marriott”, Benn said in relation to recent criticism.
The minister said that the government was expecting critics of the Marriott Hotel project to suggest that the sea defences were related to it.
Benn added that government was dealing with sea defences and the Marriott Hotel Project was not factored into where the groynes would be constructed and rehabilitated. He said the recent groyne construction and rehabilitation, which is costing the ministry $20 million per installation, “has to do with overtopping, why then did we go and put boulders and do things at Montrose or at Ogle or Turkeyen. Where we did things there are no Marriotts there.”
Benn then responded to criticism from retired engineer, Charles Sohan who stated in a Stabroek News letter on May 17 that groyne construction had little to do with preventing overtopping. Sohan had stated that “construction of groynes on oceanic coasts were not intended to break wave action, but to trap/prevent the drift or movement of material (sand and shell) along the coast due to the action of littoral current”.
Sohan’s letter challenged the ministry’s public stance on groyne construction and has fed into criticism that by constructing groynes in that particular area, when other areas along the seawall are also suffering from an eroded foreshore, the Marriott’s direct ocean access would be preserved.
Benn further said that while there is significant overtopping and the phenomenon, which was scheduled to begin again yesterday was problematic, it was not at a critical stage. “When you reach a critical stage and I am not aware that we are”, Benn said that the ministry would just keep monitoring the area along the Kitty to Kingston seawall and take the necessary precautions to prevent undercutting of the foreshore.
He told Stabroek News that “the erosion of the land moving along the seawall … allows a deepening of the foreshore and when there is an extreme event offshore which brings in the swellings the water overtops”. He continued that this was a matter of fact and the ministry was doing what it had to do. Benn reiterated that the seawall itself was structurally sound, but overtopping also had to do with the change in weather patterns and the nature of the high spring tides.
Benn stated that for now the ministry was evaluating the sites with heavy erosion and that the ministry was hoping for the mud shore to build up.
This build-up significantly reduces further erosion and would allow the ministry time and to free up finances to ensure more rigorous construction is done where it is most needed. Benn stated this was how the ministry has done work in the past along the Essequibo river and the East Coast.
Engineers have pointed out to Stabroek News that the Montrose, ECD area has large boulders against the seawall that significantly slows damage to the wall and assists with overtopping by breaking the water. However, Benn noted that the cost for this to be done along three kilometres of the Kitty to Kingston seawall would top $1 billion, money the ministry does not have, “engineers are contemplating solutions…but we won’t be spending a billion dollars,” Benn stated in relation to the stretch of seawall currently affected by the high spring tides and overtopping.
Engineers noted that the combination of the strong northeast wind which pushes the surface of the water and the combined low foreshore and the spring tides mean overtopping was a matter of fact. On January 12 of this year the wave height reached 3.28 metres, on April 26 waves were as high as 3.18 meters. On Sunday the high tides are expected to reach 3.21 meters at 4.36 am.
Benn noted that subsidence, the lowering of the surface level was not an immediate concern, but Guyana does utilize underground water stores and over time the continual depletion of ground water will contribute to subsidence. “It is possible that if there is a great amount of extraction of underground water from an aquifer and it decompresses you can have subsidence”, Benn stated. He said that Guyana does not have the measurements of subsidence and that the aquifer being utilized by Georgetown was almost 1000 feet underground.
