Several breaches along the porous Mahaicony sea defence were recently sealed but farmers say they remain fearful that the repairs would not hold up against spring tides and new breaches might develop due to the rapid erosion occurring.
A visit last week by Stabroek News to the affected areas in Dantzig and Columbia on the East Coast of Demerara, found that the breaches were sealed and excavators were working to reinforce areas observed to be eroding.
Stabroek News observed at the breach in Dantzig, that engineers were forced to use discarded sugarcane pontoons along with boulders and plastic sea defence liners to seal it.
Farmers explained that the pontoons were added as a means of further reinforcement since the force of the tides was moving the boulders. They said that while sealing the breach would help, much more needs to be done to strengthen the sea defence along the Mahaicony coast.
“They will have to strengthen up the sea defence. I think the current of the water is too strong and the water will look for weak spots to penetrate. The area is getting porous and if we don’t have a good sea defence the force of the water will damage everything,” Cleveland Ramsammy, a farmer of Fairfield said.
He related that from his home, he has observed a vulnerable area that might potentially break away.
“From my home, I am seeing that it (a stretch in Fairfield) is getting clear so it is looking like more mangroves are getting cleared off. It is showing that something is happening there and it looks wider than these,” he said.
“I born and grow [here]. We used to go out about a mile and three quarter before you got to the shore. But it has changed since then and within three years, the shore and mangroves from this area was washed away,” he added.
Other farmers also pointed out that the sea defence in Glaziers Lust and Ketely are under threat as they have observed erosion.
Ramsammy added that a permanent sea defence needs to be constructed in order to save farmlands and livelihoods.
“To control the situation, they would have to look at [reinforcing] and [strengthening] the sea defence and that is not a short-term project,” he stated.
Just over three weeks ago, a sea defence breach in Mahaicony, threatened over 1,500 acres of rice lands. On July 4, the sea defence, which separates farmlands from the ocean, broke away. That stretch of sea defence had been eroding for some time and farmers said they made numerous complaints to the authorities but nothing was done.
Since the breach of the sea defence, three excavators from the Ministry of Public Infrastructure were deployed to assist in the rebuilding of the dams to prevent the salt water from invading the drainage and irrigation channels, and by default, flooding the farmers’ lands.
“What has happened is the entire sea dam from the area going west to the Mahaica Creek end has seen the erosion of the mangroves that have been deteriorating rapidly. And so there is further erosion of the sea dam at different sections,” Regional Chairman Vickchand Ramphal had explained to Stabroek News.
The ministry had echoed the observation, saying that a number of villages within the Mahaicony district are experiencing severe erosion of the foreshore, which is resulting in total loss of the mangrove forest and erosion of the sea dam. This is a cyclic erosion pattern that accelerated rapidly during recent spring tide periods, it said.
During last week’s visit by Stabroek News, two farmers said that they suffered losses as a result of the salt water getting into their farmlands.
Eight acres
Romeo, a rice farmer, said that he lost eight acres of rice due to the flooding. His estimated loss amounts to over $500,000.
“The water was on the land for about a week. With every tide, it coming in but it is moving off now. The rice is melting away and the ones that survived will produce wind paddy…” he said, adding that the waters started to recede after most of the breached sections of the sea defence were sealed.
Another farmer, Parmanand Singh, told this newspaper that his losses amount to around $800,000. “I lost ten acres of rice. Just over two weeks the water stayed on the farm because there was no drainage. The rice are dying out already and I have been trying to save some by blowing out the water to flush the lands and spraying the crop with fertilizers,” Singh said. He added that “when they were fixing the breach here, another part had break away and we didn’t have adequate drainage so water stayed on the land…”
Asked their thoughts on the works done on the sea defence, the farmers said they will only be able to assess the durability of the sea defence at the next spring tide.
“When the high tide come that is when we will know how sturdy this defence is…the water is still coming with a force and overtopping a little bit but we don’t know what will happen when there is a spring tide,” Singh said.
The ministry had said that during the neap tide period, which is currently ongoing, they would embark on emergency works.
Additionally, they had noted that a tender would be opened to construct 350 metres of rip rap structure between Prospect and Broomhall. This will be phase two of the project. “Phase 1 was already awarded and includes for the construction of 325 metres, so the total length of works is 675 metres, which is over 1,200 feet works,” the ministry said.
