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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

HDC reassures Real Spring residents of flooding concerns

by

Rhondor Dowlat
615 days ago
20230621

RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

The Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) of Trinidad and To­ba­go has col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT) to car­ry out crit­i­cal flood mit­i­ga­tion work at Re­al Spring, Val­sayn.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued by the HDC on Thurs­day in re­sponse to Guardian's ar­ti­cle which high­light­ed res­i­dents' con­cerns of flood­ing in the area, the HDC said there's co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties aimed at strength­en­ing the com­mu­ni­ty's re­silience against po­ten­tial flood­ing and pro­tect­ing our res­i­dents' well-be­ing.

"The HDC and the MOWT recog­nise the im­por­tance of proac­tive mea­sures to min­imise flood risks and pro­tect our cit­i­zens. The joint ini­tia­tive will pri­mar­i­ly fo­cus on riv­er clear­ing works along the south­ern and west­ern wa­ter­cours­es, which have been iden­ti­fied as crit­i­cal ar­eas in need of im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion," the HDC said.

Dur­ing a sig­nif­i­cant meet­ing held on No­vem­ber 1, 2022, key stake­hold­ers in­clud­ing Adri­an Leonce MP, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment, Ro­han Sinanan, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Noel Gar­cia, HDC's Chair­man and Jay­selle Mc­Far­lane, HDC's Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, came to­geth­er to ad­dress the press­ing is­sue of flood mit­i­ga­tion in Re­al Spring.

The HDC not­ed that this meet­ing brought to­geth­er ex­perts from HDC and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials to dis­cuss and strate­gise ef­fec­tive mea­sures to min­imise the im­pact of flood­ing on the com­mu­ni­ty, "These col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts and valu­able in­sights shared dur­ing this meet­ing have been in­stru­men­tal in shap­ing the on­go­ing part­ner­ship be­tween the HDC and the MOWT, ul­ti­mate­ly lead­ing to the im­ple­men­ta­tion of com­pre­hen­sive flood mit­i­ga­tion works in the de­vel­op­ment."

It al­so dis­closed that on June 8, 2023, the Drainage Di­vi­sion of the MOWT start­ed com­pre­hen­sive riv­er clear­ing works, "This es­sen­tial process will op­ti­mise wa­ter flow, mit­i­gate po­ten­tial block­ages, and al­le­vi­ate flood-prone con­di­tions in the area. By strate­gi­cal­ly re­mov­ing struc­tures or ob­jects with­in the riv­er re­serve, MOWT aims to en­hance the ef­fec­tive­ness of these flood mit­i­ga­tion ef­forts."

To fa­cil­i­tate the riv­er-clear­ing works, the HDC urged af­fect­ed res­i­dents to take the fol­low­ing ac­tions:

- Iden­ti­fy any struc­tures or ob­jects, such as fences, sheds, de­bris, etc. that are with­in the riv­er re­serve;

- Safe­ly re­move these struc­tures or ob­jects from the riv­er re­serve area by Fri­day, June 30, 2023;

- Store or re­lo­cate the re­moved struc­tures or ob­jects in a safe and ap­pro­pri­ate man­ner.

A stak­ing out ex­er­cise along Town Hous­es (TH) 65A to 68C, will be con­duct­ed by the HDC's Con­trac­tor.

Res­i­dents will be fur­ther ad­vised when this will be con­duct­ed, "This is an es­sen­tial step in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the dredg­ing and de­silt­ing of the wa­ter­course, as well as the con­struc­tion of an em­bank­ment by the Drainage Di­vi­sion of the MOWT. These works form a cru­cial part of the pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures in place to mit­i­gate po­ten­tial flood risks in the area, en­sur­ing the safe­ty and well-be­ing of res­i­dents in the event of ris­ing wa­ter lev­els."

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, dur­ing a meet­ing held on June 7, the HDC said that its Con­trac­tor was re­mind­ed of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­dress the road de­pres­sions with­in the de­vel­op­ment, "It was em­pha­sised that they should im­ple­ment tem­po­rary mea­sures to main­tain the roads un­til the com­ple­tion of all in­fra­struc­ture works, at which point the site will be paved, en­sur­ing a smooth and durable road net­work for the com­mu­ni­ty."

"Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, res­i­dents sit­u­at­ed along the south­ern and west­ern wa­ter­cours­es may be re­quired to re­move struc­tures or ob­jects that en­croach up­on the riv­er re­serve area. We kind­ly re­quest their full co­op­er­a­tion in this re­gard to en­sure un­ob­struct­ed wa­ter flow and max­imise the over­all safe­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty. The Cor­po­ra­tion and the MOWT are com­mit­ted to work­ing close­ly with res­i­dents, pro­vid­ing guid­ance and sup­port through­out the process," the HDC said.

"We un­der­stand that tem­po­rary in­con­ve­niences may arise, but they are cru­cial for the col­lec­tive well-be­ing and long-term safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty. The HDC and the MOWT ap­pre­ci­ate the un­der­stand­ing, sup­port, and co­op­er­a­tion of all res­i­dents dur­ing this sig­nif­i­cant en­deav­our," it added.


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