Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Be on guard for more flood­ing in the wet sea­son. Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter has said that the re­duced for­est cov­er from bush­fires and dried-up for­est this year would re­sult in a high­er run-off from the moun­tain­ous ar­eas in T&T's wa­ter­cours­es. "The drainage di­vi­sion has been made aware of the prob­lem from bush­fires... It re­moves the for­est cov­er and it would cre­ate greater run-off," Im­bert said at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence.

"The drainage di­vi­sion, I would say, is more than dou­bling its ef­forts than they would in a nor­mal year to make sure than all of the main rivers and ma­jor wa­ter­cours­es are cleared." He added that clear­ing T&T's ma­jor wa­ter­cours­es at present was not the prob­lem. "The prob­lem is when all the ma­te­r­i­al comes down dur­ing a rain­storm," he said. "You can­not clear ma­te­r­i­al that has not yet come down so what we will have to do in the rainy sea­son we would have to be on our guard be­cause we ex­pect more silt than nor­mal to come down from the hill­sides be­cause of the fact that for­est cov­er has been re­moved." (KM)