Dear Editor,
I refer to releases from the NDIA regarding the operation of the 3.6 billion dollar Hope Canal. Editor, first of all I am firmly of the view that this work and its cost should be among the first to be examined by a Commission of Inquiry.
It is my view, and this view is shared by three of Guyana’s greatest living hydraulic engineers Charles Sohan, Malcolm Ali and Mike Ragwen, who I have had the pleasure of speaking with in Guyana over the past several years, that this expensive fix was not necessary since there were other less expensive options for relieving the East Demerara conservancy water.
And the numbers released in both newspapers tells me the situation.
First of all Editor, contrary to what is reported in the media, the Land of Canaan structure is not a sluice, a sluice is a structure which is built to a depth of the low tide i.e. around 44 GD deep. The Land of Canaan structure is a weir, it is only around 4 ft deep i.e. it only relieves between 58 GD to 54 GD of water in the conservancy. It does not operate lower than 54 GD. The structure itself comprises five doors at 8 ft each. i.e. 40 ft wide and when the conservancy is full at 57.5 GD it is supposed to relieve into the Demerara river from 57.5 to 54 GD i.e. 3.5 ft. of the conservancy level, so we have a water relieving capacity of 3.5 ft by 40 ft or 140 sq ft aperture relieving the water into the Demerara River.
This structure was built by the PPP when in power during the colonial days in the 60’s, and every time my father, who was not only a director of Bookers but a conservancy commissioner, drove past it he would declare it a “white elephant” and curse under his breath. He thought that it should have been a 5-door koker, in which case its aperture to the Demerara River would have been 40 ft wide but 10 ft deeper so 40x 13.5 ft = 540 sq ft instead of 140 sq ft.
It was still a very viable option in 2006 when we were considering the Hope Canal i.e. convert the Land of Canaan weir to a 5-door koker. It would have cost a fraction of what the `Hopeless’ canal has cost us and do the same job, but with the potential to do much less danger to the surrounding areas.
And it is not functioning well, since the levels released by NDIA on 13th June 2015 were the following, as it relates to the conservancy water levels at that time, at Flagstaff the level was 58.25 GD, at the Lama sluice it was 57.70 GD but at Land of Canaan it was only 54.85GD! If the invert of the weir at Land of Canaan is indeed 54 GD then we are delivering to the Demerara river only 0.85 ft of water x by 40 ft i.e. 34 sq ft aperture. It’s doing nothing!!
Unless we are able to deliver 57.70 GD of water to the Land of Canaan weir, then we are wasting time and money. Clearly the outlet canal from the conservancy has to be widened, deepened or cleared of all debris since we are not delivering a proper water level to the weir. In conclusion my question is this, why are these people on the NDIA board still there? Having led us up the garden path over the past 23 years on these and other issues.
And finally Editor, I would like to point out that from the conservancy to the Land of Canaan weir the distance is only around 1.5 kilometers, the Hope Canal is 10 kilometers to the ocean, begging the question if we cannot maintain 1.5 kilometers of canal, how can we be expected to maintain 10 kilometers?
Engineers design these structures, but good managers keep them working. That is the main hurdle we have to overcome, a complete breakdown of management at all levels. The PPP had this concept that you collect some young persons out of school and as soon as they qualify as engineers, lawyers, etc they are immediately capable of good management. So we have a lot of people with no experience, manning important positions which they are incompetent to man, and the situation requires an immediate examination, as to which of our entities are suffering the most from bad management and set about to rectify the situation.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
