Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

A week af­ter brack­ish wa­ter from the Gordineau man­groves flood­ed the Mos­qui­to Creek in­con­ve­nienc­ing hun­dreds of mo­torists, crab catch­ers have set up 24-hour sur­veil­lance to mon­i­tor the Oropouche swamp.

Man­groves stretch­ing for a mile along the South Trunk Road from Paria Suites Ho­tel to the Gordineau Riv­er have been cleared to fa­cil­i­tate two lanes of the $7.2 bil­lion Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion. This is what is be­ing blamed for the flood­ing. Since then, OAS work­ers have built a berm (earth­en ledge) to pre­vent the brack­ish wa­ter from flood­ing the road.How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Crab, Conch and Oys­ter As­so­ci­a­tion (CCOA) Robert Nand­lal said since high­way con­struc­tion be­gan, the man­groves have been threat­ened.

"Over 60 peo­ple earn their liveli­hoods by catch­ing crabs, conch and oys­ters in the Oropouche swamp and since they cleared a mile of the man­groves the nurs­eries have been af­fect­ed," Nand­lal ex­plained.

The high­way is ex­pect­ed to pass through man­groves, lo­cat­ed along the coast­line at the Godineau swamp which is the breed­ing ground for 29 species of fish and nu­mer­ous species of crus­tacean crabs, oys­ters, mam­mals, ro­dents, rep­tiles, am­phib­ians and birds. The man­grove acts as a buffer be­tween the sea and the land and is a feed­ing ground for shrimp and oth­er com­mer­cial sea or­gan­isms that feed on the nu­tri­ents de­posit­ed at the mouth of the riv­er.

While he was not against the con­struc­tion of the high­way, Nand­lal said an el­e­vat­ed road over the man­groves was bet­ter for the en­vi­ron­ment."We have to pro­tect the eco-sys­tem. The Gov­ern­ment has to re­mem­ber that man­groves are pro­tect­ed around the world and to in­ter­fere with that would dam­age the en­tire eco-sys­tem," Nand­lal said.

Dur­ing a meet­ing with his mem­bers on Thurs­day, Nand­lal said a de­ci­sion was tak­en to pro­vide 24-hour sur­veil­lance of the man­groves. He al­so called on oth­er con­ser­va­tion groups such as the Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion Group and Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea to join their fight.

'Oropouche swamp is­the least pro­tect­ed'

Say­ing the Oropouche swamp was the least pro­tect­ed of the three swamps in Trinidad, Nand­lal added the mem­bers were will­ing to work with the Gov­ern­ment to pro­tect the swamp."We will be the watch­dogs be­cause we can­not al­low our eco-sys­tem to be de­stroyed. Flood­ing of that mag­ni­tude has nev­er oc­curred on the Mos­qui­to Creek be­fore. Usu­al­ly we get sea wa­ter beat­ing in and com­ing on­to the road. This time the wa­ter from the swamp flood­ed the road­way caus­ing hun­dreds of mo­torists to be af­fect­ed," Nand­lal said.

He not­ed that prop­er en­gi­neer­ing works must be ex­e­cut­ed to pre­vent fur­ther flood­ing.Mean­while, di­rec­tor of the Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion group Mark De Ver­teuil said his team was will­ing to work with the CCOA."Man­groves are among the most im­por­tant parts of the ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment. They are in­cred­i­bly im­por­tant as nurs­eries for ju­ve­nile fish, sharks and oth­er species," De Ver­teuil said.He added that a cause­way should have been built over the swamp rather than clear­ing down the man­groves.

"There were en­gi­neer­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties to build a struc­ture that would have al­lowed the free flow of fresh and sea wa­ter. It would have helped re­ju­ve­nate the swamp at the mos­qui­to creek. How­ev­er, a short-sight­ed de­ci­sion was made to go for the cheap­est op­tion and this was the worst op­tion for the en­vi­ron­ment," De Ver­teuil said.He not­ed that cul­verts could have been built to al­low the min­gling of sea and fresh wa­ter, there­by pre­vent­ing flood­ing.

'Govt signed in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion to pro­tect the man­groves'

De Ver­teuil said that T&T had signed an in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion to pro­tect the man­groves."The Gov­ern­ment agreed to a no net loss of man­grove pol­i­cy and that meant wher­ev­er it was re­moved it would have to be re­plant­ed. To my knowl­edge this promise has not been kept," De Ver­teuil said. He added that all over T&T fish­er­men were com­plain­ing that they were not catch­ing fish. "This is re­lat­ed to the loss of man­groves so we are ap­peal­ing to the au­thor­i­ties to pro­tect our man­groves," De Ver­teuil said.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view last year, for­mer works min­is­ter Jack Warn­er said it was too ex­pen­sive to build a cause­way over the Oropouche man­groves. He had said, "A cause­way is al­most dou­ble the cost of a high­way and it will not solve of the prob­lems with the man­groves be­cause in any case you will have to dam­age the man­grove as such. We have some dam­age. We have pro­fes­sion­als and ex­perts who are de­cid­ing the best way to do it and in the end the man­grove will not be dam­aged."

Nid­co work­ing swift­ly to deals with flood­ing

Mean­while works are go­ing on apace to pre­vent fur­ther flood­ing at the Creek. Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) pres­i­dent Dr Car­son Charles said last week that con­trac­tors will have to lift the berm (earth­en ledge) to pre­vent the wa­ter.

"At high tide, the wa­ter will back up in the man­grove and then it will go down at low tide. What is hap­pen­ing at high tide, when it starts to go in­to the man­grove, it is com­ing over at one point. It is reach­ing the berm and com­ing over in­to the road so they are re­pair­ing that. They al­so have to lift the berm so that at high tide the wa­ter will not reach and come over," Charles said.

He added that the prob­lem will be solved when the high­way is built, be­cause the en­tire road­way will be high­er than the sea lev­el. Ef­forts to con­tact En­vi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Gan­ga Singh for com­ment proved fu­tile as calls to his cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered.