RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ste Madeleine vil­lagers have been beg­ging the Min­istry of Works to use its am­phibi­ous dredger to clean the his­toric Usine Ste Madeleine pond.

But when their cries fell on deaf ears, they found an in­no­v­a­tive way to clean the pond them­selves.

With the help of the Hunters’ As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, the vil­lagers fash­ioned a steel rack in front of a pirogue.

Every day since then, the vil­lagers and hunters board the pirogue and then take turns push­ing the wa­ter lilies to­wards a back­hoe, which then scoops the lilies out of the pond be­fore dump­ing them in­to a wait­ing truck parked on the Na­pari­ma Ma­yaro Road. An­oth­er back­hoe then clears slush off the road­way.

It’s been 20 days since the project start­ed and al­ready, the pond shows signs of its for­mer glo­ry. The pond clean-up project has been spear­head­ed by Pun­dit Don­ny Sam­lal, whose grand­fa­ther, Pun­dit Sam­nar­ine Sam­lal Ma­haraj, per­formed Mati­coor poo­ja reg­u­lar­ly on the banks of the pond al­most a cen­tu­ry ago.

“This pond is sa­cred, our an­ces­tors per­formed the mati­coor here, al­so shav­ing prayers and an­ces­tral prayers right here. The lilies and the con­di­tion of the pond have been a cause of con­cern to us over the past few months. The pond has been de­te­ri­o­rat­ing over the years and it is tru­ly a shame,” Pun­dit Sam­lal told Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er this month.

In an in­ter­view on Sat­ur­day, Corinth/Cedar Hill coun­cil­lor Shawn Prem­c­hand com­mend­ed the vil­lagers for bond­ing to­geth­er to get the project go­ing.

“For the last sev­en years, the Gov­ern­ment dis­con­tin­ued work on the pond through the CEPEP com­pa­ny. I raised this mat­ter at the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion lev­el to have the au­thor­i­ties step back to clean. I asked Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to lend us the am­phibi­ous dredger that they have been us­ing in oth­er ar­eas to clear these wa­ter lilies. But the Gov­ern­ment has failed us again in not re­spond­ing to our calls,” Prem­c­hand said.

He al­so called on the Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands to speed up the process of hand­ing over the lands near the pond to the PTRC.

“In 2019, I raised a mo­tion for the ac­qui­si­tion of 55 parcels of land to cre­ate an eco-tourism park in this area. We had all the ap­provals for the re­quest of ac­qui­si­tion which was sub­mit­ted and we are be­ing told it is be­ing processed. I am ap­peal­ing to the Com­mis­sion­er of State lands to speed up the process so we can take over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and so as­sist the com­mu­ni­ty that is in­volved in that clean-up ex­er­cise,” he said.

The pond, deemed a his­toric gem, is over 160 years old and had be­come over­grown with wa­ter hy­acinths and lilies over the past decade.

Still haunt­ing­ly beau­ti­ful, the an­cient, gnarled trees around the pond have be­come in­fest­ed with par­a­sitic plants and Gi­ant African snails.

Prem­c­hand said al­though heavy rains had ham­pered the pond clean-up, he was pleased that the com­mu­ni­ty had ral­lied to­geth­er to achieve so much in such a short space of time.

“This is about sav­ing the pond and sav­ing our en­vi­ron­ment,” he added.

A fundrais­er was held on Sat­ur­day to pay the con­trac­tor in­volved in the clean-up works. Any­one want­i­ng to con­tribute to the project can call Prem­c­hand at 684-0638.

Ques­tions have been sent to Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan ask­ing why the am­phibi­ous dredger has not been used but these calls have gone unan­swered.