Vil­lagers of Corinth and Cedar Hill are us­ing their own monies to clean the his­toric Usine Ste Madeleine pond which was once the main cool­ing sys­tem for the steam-pow­ered Usine Ste Madeleine sug­ar fac­to­ry. 

The pond, deemed a his­toric gem, is over 160 years old and has 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.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the snails were gnaw­ing away on shrubs and trees on the pic­turesque grounds, part of which is used as a golf course.

In an in­ter­view, for­mer Ca­roni work­er Rawl­in Ra­goonath said the pond was an im­por­tant part of the old sug­ar fac­to­ry.

“The fac­to­ry utilised a vac­u­um pan process to pro­duce sug­ar, mo­lasses, rum and bagasse and the pond was the cool­ing sys­tem,” Ra­goonath ex­plained.

He added that the pond wa­ter was al­so used for wash­ing down the fac­to­ry grounds. But apart from this, the pond al­so had great re­li­gious sig­nif­i­cance.

“This area is sa­cred be­cause peo­ple used to come here and do their prayers on these grounds. It was al­so a spot for fish­ing and recre­ation; pic­nics for fam­i­lies,” Ra­goonath said.

Say­ing vil­lagers want­ed to re­store the pond to its orig­i­nal state, Ra­goonath called on the Min­istry of Works to part­ner with the com­mu­ni­ties to clean the pond.

Mean­while, Pun­dit Don­ny Sam­lal said a cen­tu­ry ago, his grand­fa­ther Pun­dit Sam­nar­ine Sam­lal Ma­haraj per­formed Mati­coor poo­ja reg­u­lar­ly on the banks of the pond.

“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 said.

He added, “We took the ini­tia­tive this year to do some­thing about this. We mo­bilised equip­ment us­ing funds from the mandir and us­ing my per­son­al funds. We got church­es and mosques in­volved as well and to­geth­er we want to have this project done be­cause this pond was part of our child­hood.”

De­vi­ka Thomas of the Re­unit­ed Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion called on Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan and San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning to get in­volved.

“We have asked for equip­ment to clean the pond. We are await­ing trucks and a pla­toon ex­ca­va­tor that floats on the wa­ter to as­sist us. We will be us­ing boats to drag more of the lilies to the edge. Peo­ple need to step up and show some care about the com­mu­ni­ty and sur­round­ings,” she added.

Coun­cil­lor for Corinth/Cedar Hill Shawn Prem­c­hand said the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion is hop­ing to get own­er­ship of the site.

“We have been beg­ging the Min­istry of Works for the am­phibi­ous dredger to as­sist but we have not been able to get a re­sponse from the Min­is­ter and the Min­istry of Works ei­ther,” he said. 

Prem­c­hand said they were hop­ing to set up a tourist at­trac­tion at the site, not­ing that with­in the past few years, the pond has been the scene of sui­cides and mur­ders. He said the golf course is well main­tained but the pond was bad­ly in need of main­te­nance.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Man­ning said the pond main­te­nance has been a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion. 

“We have been us­ing the con­stituen­cy’s CEPEP teams to man­age the sur­round­ing ar­eas but the pond falls un­der Ca­roni and the man­age­ment of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. We are aware of the is­sue but re­mem­ber that it falls out­side of our ju­ris­dic­tion.”

He added, “We are will­ing to work with the PTRC in re­solv­ing this im­por­tant mat­ter. As you know parts of San Fer­nan­do East over­lap with the PTRC and we have had dif­fi­cul­ty re­ceiv­ing time­ly as­sis­tance from this es­sen­tial body.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter Sinanan for com­ment proved fu­tile.