Mining camps and residents of some interior communities are running low on food, fuel and other necessities due to the continued obstruction of the Mazaruni River channel usually used to transport supplies to the areas, as a result of a sunken dredge.
The dredge, which is the property of Crown Mining Supplies, sunk at the Piremap Falls three months ago, but only became a hindrance to users of the river after it shifted into the channel when the company tried to remove it. Several attempts to remove it since then have not been successful.
On Friday last, it was announced that the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD) and Crown Mining Supplies, which owns the dredge, would be intensifying its efforts to remove the dredge.
On Monday, the company met with MARAD to discuss the way forward but no decision of the meeting was announced.
Although cargo and passenger boats are currently using a back channel to access communities, residents are still faced with some amount of difficulty to use the river, Regional Chairman Gordon Bradford told Stabroek News yesterday, while noting that use of the alternative route is dependent on the current water level in the river.
According to Bradford, should the water level drop at any time, it would be difficult for users and residents of the riverine communities. The communities of Isseneru, Kangaruma and Tassarene from middle Mazaruni are the ones mostly affected, Bradford said.
When school reopened in early September, many students who attend school in Bartica were unable to attend due to the dredge being stuck in the river. However, Bradford said they have managed to transport the students to school after the water level rose and operators began using the back channel. The school children are currently housed at the Bartica dormitory.
Bradford told Stabroek News that miners are finding the current situation burdensome as they do not have the freedom currently to transport items to workers in the interior locations. He explained that if the river channel were free, miners would have been able to frequently deliver supplies to their camps. “Now, it is hard because if they have perishables and so, they would have to know how they are taking it to the camps. When the channel was free, they could have easily put it on a cargo boat and it would have gone,” Bradford said.
Bradford and a team are preparing to visit the affected site on Friday to further assess the situation.
In a recent letter to Stabroek News, a miner said workers and supply boats that work for and service over 50 mining operations had to use whatever means they could to gain access to their mining camps, including manually fetching supplies over rocky and dangerous terrain and in some cases in waist-deep water just to survive.
“I am concerned about the non-action by this company which seems to be above the law as they continue daily totally disregarding the inconvenience that their sloppiness in handling this situation has caused to so many miners,” the miner wrote, while adding that the operations of the two jetboat services that service the locations had been completely halted, putting almost 60 workers out of work.
