Gail Alexan­der

For­mer San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan has re­count­ed pre­vi­ous flood­ing prob­lems in his for­mer con­stituen­cy, af­ter farm­ers broke the Ca­roni Riv­er banks to get wa­ter for crops in the dry sea­son and when diesel was stolen from pumps in the area.

Khan spoke about the is­sues af­ter re­cent floods dev­as­tat­ed that area and ad­join­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

For­mer St George Coun­ty Agri­cul­tur­al of­fi­cers al­so re­count­ed how squat­ting and “dan­ger­ous il­le­gal busi­ness­es” be­came ram­pant in the low-ly­ing Bam­boo I, II and III ar­eas over the 1980s to 1990s – but not­ed that of­fi­cers were threat­ened, even at gun­point, when they en­tered the ar­eas to ad­vise res­i­dents against the dan­gers of build­ing near the riv­er.

“So why this ‘dra­ma’ now when we tried to beg, ap­peal and warn peo­ple against build­ing there and we were chased out?” the of­fi­cers asked.

Khan, prepar­ing ham­pers to send to his for­mer con­stituen­cy, spoke about the El So­cor­ro South, San Juan area which was par­tic­u­lar­ly af­fect­ed.

Khan ex­plained, “Many who did farm­ing, when the riv­er was low, would break the bank to get wa­ter for their crops and didn’t fill it back se­cure­ly. So, when rain fell and the riv­er ‘came down’, the ar­eas where the bank was bro­ken, flood­ed vil­lages.

“The oth­er prob­lem is, some peo­ple would steal the diesel from pumps need­ed to pump out the wa­ter. Pump parts were al­so stolen. So, pumps of­ten weren’t work­ing. I used to get that prob­lem and we had to fix it, some­times I used my own mon­ey to fix it.”

“When I was House Speak­er in the Pan­day gov­ern­ment and we had flood­ing, I told him the front of the riv­er mouth need­ed dredg­ing. Mr Pan­day got it done,” Khan said, dis­play­ing a pic­ture of the riv­er mouth which was dredged and is now clogged with mud.

Khan said those who built homes on the “river­bank” were born and grew up there, “but maybe they should pre­pare to put their house on stilts like in Guyana.”

“And if you take is­sue with them, you have to take equal is­sue with peo­ple build­ing on the hill­sides and the quar­ry­ing that’s go­ing on there, which is caus­ing the hill­sides to come down when rains fall.”

Mean­while, the for­mer St George Coun­ty Agri­cul­tur­al of­fi­cers said the flood­ing made them re­call the warn­ings against dan­ger­ous land prac­tices which they tried to give Bam­boo res­i­dents over the years, when those lands were des­ig­nat­ed non-res­i­den­tial and non-agri­cul­tur­al.

“Sud­den­ly, squat­ting be­came ram­pant. As force­ful­ly as the State Lands unit tried to halt things, it was im­pos­si­ble. Peo­ple came in droves, nev­er heed­ing the per­ti­nent ad­vice from gov­ern­ment then about flood­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties and land sta­bil­i­sa­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

“They set up res­i­dence and dan­ger­ous busi­ness­es. It be­came very prob­lem­at­ic: ex­ten­sion agents and State Lands of­fi­cers, up­on vis­it­ing the ar­eas, were of­ten threat­ened with their lives. So why the hul­la­baloo now? The goose has come home to roost.

“Of­fi­cers feared to en­ter Bam­boo due to the kinds of ac­tiv­i­ties there. Plus, there was al­so an­oth­er area near Mt St Bene­dict where cars were be­ing as­sem­bled, but that was dealt with.”

An­oth­er Coun­ty of­fi­cer added, “The re­al sto­ry of to­day’s floods is that Bam­boo I, II and III were bad sit­u­a­tions then, wait­ing to hap­pen for res­i­dents down the line.”