Dear Editor,
The major 2015 rainy season commenced with varying degrees of recurring flooding of Georgetown and much of the low-lying coastland at every heavy downpour during the past several weeks.
The newly elected APNU+AFC government inherited a drainage system which was grossly neglected over the years as many of its elements were in varying stages of disrepair. It was therefore inconceivable for David Patterson, Minister of Public Infrastructure (MPI) to have stated a few days ago that, “All sluices, pumps and drainage canals are in working order,” although since taking office little improvement and maintenance work were done to the drainage system in anticipation of the impending rainy season with the possibility of widespread flooding. The evidence suggests that either the drainage system as it is cannot get rid of a reasonable volume of flood water within a specified time or Minister Patterson in his pronouncement was bluffing or both.
Unfortunately the APNU+AFC has no comprehensive development plan for the drainage of coastal Guyana as it is too busy with forensic audits and COIs, and there is no current data available as to the volume of rainfall runoff the system could get rid of in a 24-hour cycle. So guesses abound. There are a lot of hypotheses swirling around about the areas under drainage being under-designed with a drainage coefficient of 1.5, 2.5 or 3.0 which has resulted in flooding, but there is no clear understanding what these numbers mean, since for an applied coefficient to be understood and meaningful to determine the volume of water to be drained from a specified area several parameters have to be considered such as land use as well as the condition, size, hydraulic factors and costs of the various elements of the drainage system.
Many of the parameters which were used to design the present drainage system no longer apply as the environment is different and needed changes to the system with band-aid solutions such as fixing a broken sluice door here and de-silting a channel there will not solve the underlying drainage problems. Drainage of the low-lying lands in Guyana has been designed as an integrated system, and all its elements have to function in tandem to achieve its planned objectives with optimum efficiency.
To address the drainage problem the government needs to make a number of urgent changes. Firstly, it has to establish an authority with clearly defined duties and responsibilities to provide adequate and effective drainage for the coastland. It cannot have the MPI, NDIA, M&CC and NDCs each doing their own thing and in the process wasting scarce public resources on questionable drainage works which have had no significant effect on alleviating flooding.
Policies and resources have to be coordinated and deployed to achieve specific drainage objectives with maximum flood relief for all.
Secondly, the drainage systems have to be delineated to determine the lands to be drained, how they are being drained and the civil works needed to get rid of a pre-determined volume of flood water within a 24-hour cycle. Once this determination is made the deficiencies of the system will become obvious and resources could then be allocated to remove them, but not in a willy-nilly way and then assuring a distraught public with the false notion that what is being done will resolve their flooding problem quickly.
The technology exists to prevent flooding of Guyana’s lowlands from high rainfall.
Unfortunately Guyana is a poor country which does not have the resources to implement such technology.
Therefore it will have to consider a less costly drainage system which will allow for occasional flooding of some areas but not with the severity and frequency now being experienced. Such a system will likely encompass gravity and pumped drainage with economic viability and affordability determining their combination.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Sohan
