Joshua Seemu­n­gal

With a ma­jor land­slide mak­ing Cum­ber­land Hill im­pass­able and threat­en­ing to im­pact na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty com­mu­ni­ca­tions as well as ra­dio, tele­vi­sion and ca­ble broad­casts, the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion said yes­ter­day it is look­ing in­to how quick­ly it can be ad­dressed.

The Min­istry of Works and Trans­port is al­so seek­ing to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion as Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said a crew will be go­ing there this morn­ing.

He said the weath­er in the last few days caused a lot of land­slips and added that drains cut by squat­ters al­so caused more wa­ter to flow down the hill and de­te­ri­o­rat­ed the hill­side.

Cor­po­ra­tion Chair­man Sigler Jack said he is aware that ac­cess to the com­mu­ni­ca­tion trans­mit­ter site was af­fect­ed and promised that all rel­e­vant par­ties will get to­geth­er and ad­dress the is­sue.

He said the cor­po­ra­tion, as well as the Min­istry of Works and Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, are all re­spon­si­ble, in vary­ing de­grees, for the pend­ing cleanup op­er­a­tion.

“An en­gi­neer is al­ready there. He al­ready vis­it­ed and so on, and this is go­ing to be worked on as soon as pos­si­ble,” he said.

When pressed for a de­fin­i­tive time­line, Jack said he couldn’t give one as yet, adding that, “We are in­un­dat­ed with a num­ber of dis­as­ter is­sues and that one, be­cause there is a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty at­tach­ment to it, will be giv­en at­ten­tion to as soon as pos­si­ble.”

Mean­while, the Di­rec­tor of the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) Ki­ran Ma­haraj con­tin­ues to ex­press con­cern about the con­di­tion of the site.

She said ‘the emer­gency’ po­ten­tial­ly threat­ens sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion trans­mit­ters - in­clud­ing those be­long­ing to elec­tron­ic me­dia out­lets and the min­istry of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Heavy rainfall has led to significant damage to the road leading to important national security and media antennae.

“I would like to ask that all of the stake­hold­ers en­sure that they can re­spond quick­ly and I ask that all the au­thor­i­ties at the var­i­ous min­istries al­so get to­geth­er. This re­al­ly is a time for us to col­lab­o­rate and act ur­gent­ly. We are in a pan­dem­ic. We can­not have our com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems jeop­ar­dized in any way,” Ma­haraj said.

“If we can­not ac­cess that site, then our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tems will go down. They will not be able to com­mu­ni­cate with each oth­er ef­fec­tive­ly and there will be a loss of most of the coun­try’s ra­dio sta­tions and the three tele­vi­sion sta­tions.”

Ac­cord­ing to Ma­haraj, the area has been sub­ject to de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in pre­vi­ous years and some re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive work was done.

She claimed, how­ev­er, that the Min­istry of Works de­ter­mined the hill need­ed more sub­stan­tive re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive work to ad­dress the is­sues.

Ma­haraj added that il­le­gal cut­ting and con­struc­tion seems to have redi­rect­ed drainage sys­tems, ex­ac­er­bat­ing prob­lems.

“It is im­pass­able. When I say im­pass­able. Re­mem­ber the type of ve­hi­cles that go up there for main­te­nance would be 4x4s, vans and trucks be­cause we have gen­er­a­tors that need to be re­fu­elled. We have trans­mit­ter equip­ment that needs to be ser­viced. So, those ve­hi­cles def­i­nite­ly can­not pass on the road,” she said.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Symon De No­bri­ga vis­it­ed Cum­ber­land Hill on Sat­ur­day with en­gi­neers from State me­dia, TTT, to as­sess the equip­ment there.

De No­bri­ga could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day as calls went unan­swered.

Minister of Communications Symon de Nobriga, left, and TTT technical staff at TTT’s transmitter facilities, at the top of Cumberland Hill on Saturday.

A long-stand­ing prob­lem

The prob­lems at Cum­ber­land Hill have been raised as mat­ters of con­cern for sev­er­al years.

Six years ago, on Oc­to­ber 21, 2015, then TTP­BA pres­i­dent Daren Lee Sing wrote to the then Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Fitzger­ald Hinds, ap­peal­ing for the road to be fixed.

“The road to Fort George and Cum­ber­land Hill con­tin­ues to be in dire need of ma­jor re­pair as at times it be­comes im­pass­able due to nu­mer­ous land­slides on route, as well as the road it­self be­ing bro­ken,” the let­ter said.

The TTP­BA had 13 re­quests in the let­ter:

“1. To de­clare the site a Se­cu­ri­ty Re­strict­ed Area

2. To in­sti­tute im­me­di­ate po­lice pa­trols of site and aer­i­al sur­veil­lance

3. To have CEPEP cut/clear road­side and drains and main­tain

4. To have mi­nor re­pairs and im­prove drainage as a pri­or­i­ty be­fore road re­pairs by Min­istry of Works

5. To have the Min­is­ter of Works ass­es site/and scope of re­pairs need­ed

6. To present a note on the sta­tus of the site to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil re­gard­ing se­cu­ri­ty risks

7. To con­struct a Po­lice/Army post and out­fit with equip­ment/staff

8. To as­sess the fea­si­bil­i­ty of in­stalling a he­li­pad

9. To in­stall CCTV cam­eras on site and road­way to mon­i­tor move­ments

A tree tilts across the road along Cumberland Hill.

10. To con­sid­er a se­cu­ri­ty fence for the en­tire site

11. To con­sid­er a con­trol gate on road­way

12. To ap­proach Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties re TTEC pow­er sup­ply mat­ters

13. To en­sure pay­ment in fu­ture are time­ly to Users group re main­te­nance.”

The let­ter had not­ed that in ad­di­tion to broad­cast­ers, there were sev­er­al oth­er users of the site, some of which re­late to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“Ac­cess to the site, there­fore, is crit­i­cal. A he­li­copter is not an op­tion be­cause there is no land­ing, he­li­port or space to land,” the TTP­BA had point­ed out.

It not­ed that the TTP­BA had in the past al­so been in touch with the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM) and the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion on this is­sue.

“ODPM had in­di­cat­ed to the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion the ur­gency of the mat­ter but have re­layed to us the fact that they can­not give a di­rec­tive to the said Cor­po­ra­tion.”

Cum­ber­land Hill users

Non TTP­BA Mem­bers:

T&TEC

Massy Tech­nolo­gies

Shell

TSTT

Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty

Cari­bel

Massy Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (Am­plia)

Lisa Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

Dig­i­cel

Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um

Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan

TTP­BA Mem­bers:

CCN TV6

CCN Ra­dio

GML Ra­dio

GML TV - CNC3

TTT Ra­dio

TTT Tele­vi­sion

Caribbean Lifestyle Com­mu­ni­ca­tions

TTRN