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Sunday, February 16, 2025

Insufficient river work done say Oropouche residents

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622 days ago
20230606
President of the South Oropouche Riverine Flood Action Group Edward Moodie says the South Oropouche River was never desilted but was merely cleared of vegetation.

President of the South Oropouche Riverine Flood Action Group Edward Moodie says the South Oropouche River was never desilted but was merely cleared of vegetation.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Res­i­dents of flood-prone ar­eas in South Oropouche are ex­press­ing frus­tra­tion at the lack of progress in de­silt­ing projects in their re­gion de­spite Gov­ern­ment’s claims of en­gag­ing con­trac­tors for more than 500 projects na­tion­wide. 

The South Oropouche Riv­er, which flows in­to the Gordineau Riv­er, was list­ed for de­silt­ing works. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Ed­ward Mood­ie, pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group, less than four kilo­me­tres of the riv­er has been prop­er­ly de­silt­ed.

Stand­ing on the banks of the riv­er yes­ter­day, Mood­ie point­ed out in­suf­fi­cient work, stat­ing: “If this riv­er was de­silt­ed, you would see the silt on the banks of the riv­er. Show me where it was de­silt­ed be­cause all they did was grub the riv­er, which is to take out the over­grown veg­e­ta­tion on the riv­er.”

Mood­ie said the ma­jor­i­ty of the de­silt­ing work has been fo­cused on north Trinidad, with very lit­tle progress in the south. He said based on da­ta pro­vid­ed by Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, on­ly three projects were com­plet­ed be­tween Moru­ga and the Godineau bridge, one of the main out­flows of the South Oropouche Drainage Basin.

“This riv­er is 42 kilo­me­tres long, which means 84 kilo­me­tres of riv­er banks, and on­ly four they did? This is in­suf­fi­cient and it means a to­tal dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen,” he said

Mood­ie al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the lack of projects on the Curo­ma­ta Riv­er, the sec­ond-largest riv­er in South Oropouche, which has not been de­silt­ed.

In re­cent months, vil­lagers have been ap­peal­ing for re­pairs to riv­er banks to mit­i­gate flood­ing in the re­gion. Adesh Singh, pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Flood Ac­tion Group, men­tioned breach­es in the banks of the New Cut Chan­nel that re­quire ur­gent for­ti­fi­ca­tion be­fore the ar­rival of heavy rains.

Oropouche West MP Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said the Works Min­istry’s ef­forts were in­ad­e­quate and fo­cused on su­per­fi­cial ac­tions, such as re­mov­ing wa­ter lilies and veg­e­ta­tion, rather than ef­fec­tive­ly de­silt­ing the rivers. He said no work was done on the Curo­ma­ta Riv­er.

“There seems to be a lack of in­ter­est in al­le­vi­at­ing the suf­fer­ing of the peo­ple in Oropouche West,” he said.

“The Min­is­ter says 100 per cent of work has been done, but grub­bing the area can­not be all that is re­quired to pre­vent flood­ing. No work was done in the Curo­ma­ta Riv­er, and that is fright­en­ing be­cause it tells me that the Min­istry is not in­ter­est­ed in al­le­vi­at­ing the suf­fer­ing of the peo­ple of Oropouche West.”

Min­is­ter Sinanan did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment yes­ter­day. In re­sponse to a ques­tion in the Sen­ate on May 31, he pro­vid­ed a break­down of works com­plet­ed be­tween Oc­to­ber 1, 2021, and Sep­tem­ber 30, 2022. At the time, he said the to­tal num­ber of projects was 668.


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