Shal­iza Has­sanali

By Feb­ru­ary 2011, work on the coun­try's first un­der­ground tun­nel, span­ning from moun­tain­ous Mara­cas Val­ley to pic­turesque Mara­cas Bay is ex­pect­ed to start. In un­der­tak­ing the project, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Jack Warn­er is as­sur­ing tax­pay­ers that when the un­der­ground pas­sage­way is com­plet­ed in the next two to three years, it will be worth every cent. "I will be the last per­son to spend mon­ey on a grandiose project just for my ego," said Warn­er, dur­ing an in­ter­view on Fri­day. "It will not cost us bil­lions be­cause I will en­sure that we un­der­take this project un­der a fixed price con­tract." On Jan­u­ary 26, 2011, Warn­er said he would be turn­ing the sod for the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin high­way. "And one month af­ter that, if all goes well, I pro­pose to do the same with this tun­nel."

No pie in the sky

Be­fore turn­ing the sod for the project, Warn­er promised to have con­sul­ta­tion with all stake­hold­ers, stress­ing that the pub­lic must be made aware in or­der to buy in­to it. "This is no pie in the sky." He, how­ev­er, ad­mit­ted there would be min­i­mal re­lo­ca­tion for some peo­ple. Un­able to say what the fi­nal cost of the tun­nel would be, Warn­er said with­in the com­ing weeks more would be re­vealed. Seek­ing guid­ance and ad­vice from Dr Rae Fur­longe, a civ­il en­gi­neer and trans­port ex­pert, Warn­er said one op­tion had been looked at. "We have dis­cussed the is­sue of a tun­nel-bor­ing ma­chine which is used to ex­ca­vate through a va­ri­ety of soil and rocks. If we plan to use this de­vice we will have to source or lease it. We cer­tain­ly will not buy it."

In de­liv­er­ing his first bud­get on Sep­tem­ber 8, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment was seek­ing to de­vel­op the North Coast. Not­ing that it takes 45 min­utes to get from San­ta Cruz to Mara­cas Bay, Dook­er­an said fre­quent land­slips along the North Coast road have been a ma­jor de­ter­rent to peo­ple wish­ing to ac­cess the route for plea­sure or busi­ness. In light of this, Dook­er­an said the Gov­ern­ment would un­der­take the cre­ation of an un­der­ground tun­nel from Mara­cas Val­ley to Mara­cas Bay to en­able quick­er ac­cess.

The ri­ot act

With time of the essence, Warn­er said the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co), head­ed by Dr Car­son Charles, had been con­duct­ing var­i­ous stud­ies to en­sure best in­ter­na­tion­al prac­tices for the project. Nid­co, Warn­er said, had al­so been un­der­tak­ing their stud­ies to get the ball rolling. "I have al­ready read the ri­ot act to Nid­co and all the con­trac­tors that when they agree on a fixed price con­tract, the Gov­ern­ment will not en­ter­tain any cost over­runs. The scope of the work must in­clude all the things you have to do, so vari­a­tions will not come in to cloud the is­sue that will lead to cost over­runs. We can't do that.

"This project will bring more to our coun­try than imag­ined, in terms of open­ing up the whole North Coast road, in main­tain­ing the area's flo­ra and fau­na, but, most im­por­tant­ly, we have to look at what it will do for tourism," he added.

Po­ten­tial for in­vestors

Past pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of T&T Vaughn Leza­ma wel­comed the tun­nel, stat­ing that the North Coast road has a lot of po­ten­tial for in­vestors. "While en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists may see it as degra­da­tion to the moun­tain­side, the time has come for us to take the bold step. We have enough qual­i­fied and skilled en­gi­neers in the coun­try to get the job done."

Leza­ma, a civ­il en­gi­neer at­tached to Con­sult­ing En­gi­neers and As­so­ciates, feels the most prac­ti­cal way of un­der­tak­ing the project is bor­ing both ends of the two ar­eas, to meet mid-point.

Leza­ma said the bor­ing would gen­er­ate enough rock and soil that could be used for the con­struc­tion sec­tor. Head of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil, Win­ston Ri­ley, said: "This is not one of the projects that we should be look­ing at. It is not one of those that should take a pri­or­i­ty po­si­tion in terms of ex­pen­di­ture."