On Wednesday afternoon at 4.30, misfortune struck the East Bank Demerara communities of Peter’s Hall, Nandy Park and Providence. Guyanese in general along the coast are only too familiar with this kind of crisis, which was precipitated in this instance by the breach of a koker door at high tide. The water which came rushing in rose at least four-and-a-half feet in some parts and possibly even higher at certain points, and inevitably the flooding caused immense damage to property. Inevitably too the authorities were not too forthcoming about who bore ultimate responsibility for the koker failure, and there was no hint even that the victims could entertain any expectation of the compensation to which they understandably feel they are entitled.
This is a hydraulic society, so to speak. We survive along this littoral by being able to successfully manage water – that is to say, by taking fresh water off the land, and preventing sea water from intruding onto it. (The coastal strip, as everyone knows, lies below high tide level.) Over a very long time-frame generations of engineers in this country have evolved a complicated network of drainage channels to siphon off the fresh water by gravity at low tide. In addition, there are more than seventy miles of formal sea defences to prevent the salt water from encroaching onto the land. Managing that system is very expensive, and requires expertise as well as regular monitoring and maintenance.
Leaving the Great Flood of 2005 out of account, there have been any number of other inundations involving both sea water and fresh water over the last two decades, which are too numerous to itemise here. While there will, once in a while, be the unusual event, this regular history of flooding suggests that our hydraulic world is being very poorly managed by the administration, and this in circumstances where our economy is still dependent on agriculture of one sort of another, and where the overwhelming majority of our population is still domiciled on the coast.
Where this latest incident is concerned, we reported on Friday that residents related how the koker door had given way because of the force of the water from the tide coupled with poor maintenance. They went on to tell our reporter that the door had been an issue for years, since this wasn’t the first time it had been breached; it had been replaced in 2008, for example, after it had ruptured. Furthermore, they said that someone had purchased the sea dam on which the koker was located, and that this person had begun to cut down the mangroves. They wondered, therefore, whether this too might not have had a role to play in the breach.
Whether it was a factor or not, it can only be remarked that it is strange the government would allow anyone to cut down mangroves considering their frequent attempts to publicise the importance of these to stabilising a shoreline, and in the case of the East Coast, offering protection from the sea. It may be, of course, that the authorities didn’t even know about this case of mangrove destruction – or didn’t care – which would speak volumes about how much control they have over our drainage systems and flood defences.
Now clearly this was one of the more vulnerable points along our sea and river defences – there are many others – and it should have been subject to regular inspections over and above the routine monitoring which should be undertaken along the length of our coast and low-lying riverine areas affected by the tide.
So under whose responsibility did this particular koker fall? NDC Chairman Saeed Khan was reported by Stabroek News as saying that it was out of the NDC’s jurisdiction, but if a bolt or other “small things” were required, they would try and fix it. However, when a major malfunction occurred, he said, the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) would look after it. For his part, when Chief Executive Officer of NDIA Lionel Wordsworth was asked about who was responsible for the maintenance of the koker, he replied, “All I can say is that we are paying operators.” In other words, no one is accepting direct responsibility for what has happened.
For the time being the NDIA has put a temporary arrangement in place with stop logs, and three men calling themselves “human kokers” are on site to lift the logs or push them down, according to the tide. It seems to be working, although the residents understandably feel none too secure about it. A full repair of the koker door, Mr Wordsworth told this newspaper, will take a little time because of the specifications for the materials, which would have to be gathered, following which it would require 10 to 14 days to build and install it.
The little Guyanese universe of the coastal plain requires a great deal of discipline to manage, and this is one thing which has not been much in evidence for a very long time. In the first instance, drainage and sea defences cannot be done on the cheap; this government has shown a predilection for ploughing taxpayers’ money into useless projects like the Marriott Hotel, when there are less flashy but far more critical areas like keeping us safe from floods, to spend it on.
In addition, given the expansiveness of the littoral, the length of the sea wall and other defences, the miles and miles of main and secondary canals, the conservancies, the drainage pumps, and the large number of kokers and sluices, the Ministry of Works should ensure it has enough engineers on its establishment. It might be added, that it also needs to ensure that it pays them well, otherwise the experienced civil engineers in one field or another will stay in private practice.
In general too, it should be prepared to employ enough lower-level personnel to maintain the system, and in particular, to monitor both the system and the people employed in it. There have been enough stories in the past of koker attendants falling asleep at high tide and not closing the doors, or being so drunk they were not in a fit state to arrive punctually to carry out their duties. It is a question again of devising the routines to keep the water at bay, and then rigorously implementing them.
All of this would presuppose, of course, that the most rational division of responsibility for coastal drainage is in place (sea defences are separate), and that the public is aware of who is responsible for what. In the case of the Peter’s Hall koker, the residents’ first recourse where there has been a problem in the past was to the NDC, although the Chairman, as said above, insisted it was not under the council’s jurisdiction. There should be no confusion about this in anyone’s mind.
The other element in the flooding story (although not in this case), is garbage disposal, and after twenty-two years, the government has alighted on no systematic, comprehensive approach to address the problem. The ‘Clean it up’ campaign is currently in operation, but after that runs its course, what then? How will the newly cleaned areas be maintained in their sanitised state?
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the whole flooding episode on the East Bank could have been avoided had there been proper systems in place, and officialdom at all levels had been doing its duty.
