Shas­tri Boodan

An­gry res­i­dents of La Paille Vil­lage, Ca­roni, staged a plac­ard demon­stra­tion yes­ter­day, call­ing for the im­me­di­ate re­pair to the riv­er banks that pass through their com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dents gath­ered along the Ca­roni Riv­er Bridge round­about as ear­ly as 6 am and demon­strat­ed to high­light their cause.

Res­i­dents told Guardian Me­dia that parts of the river­bank start­ed col­laps­ing last year and the vil­lage was al­most flood­ed out.

Res­i­dents said since last year the ero­sion had been on­go­ing but the Min­istry of Works was not tak­ing any ac­tion.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said if noth­ing is done be­fore the start of the rainy sea­son, the vil­lagers would send a clear mes­sage to Min­is­ter of Works Ro­han Sinan­nan that they mean busi­ness.

“If we don’t see works be­ing done this is go­ing to es­ca­late. It is some­thing you (re­fer­ring to Sinan­nan) will live to re­gret. If this rainy sea­son comes and we have prob­lems with this river­bank, you could bet your bot­tom dol­lar Ch­agua­nas West is go­ing to cut off South Trinidad from North Trinidad and vice-ver­sa. We are go­ing to cut off West from the East.”

Ram­bal­ly said he has writ­ten to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and all he has re­ceived were emp­ty promis­es.

He said the com­mu­ni­ty wants to see sub­stan­tial work tak­ing place be­fore the del­uge starts.

Min­istry re­sponds

The Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit of the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port is­sued a re­lease fol­low­ing the protest. The re­lease said the min­istry con­tin­ues to em­bark on a mul­ti­pronged ap­proach to mit­i­gate flood­ing in the Ca­roni Riv­er Catch­ment and oth­er catch­ment ar­eas across Trinidad.

The re­lease stat­ed, “The Drainage Di­vi­sion is present­ly con­duct­ing its an­nu­al Com­pre­hen­sive De­silt­ing Pro­gramme with over 20 de­silt­ing projects be­ing un­der­tak­en on the Ca­roni Riv­er and its trib­u­taries. As it re­lates to the La Paille project, the min­istry is aware of the is­sue and the Drainage Di­vi­sion has de­vel­oped a short and medi­um-term plan to ad­dress the prob­lem.”

The min­istry said that in 2019, restora­tion works were un­der­tak­en at this lo­ca­tion, how­ev­er, it was not suf­fi­cient giv­en the mag­ni­tude of the prob­lem.

“As such, the min­istry saw the need to es­tab­lish a per­ma­nent so­lu­tion of slope sta­bil­i­sa­tion and ero­sion con­trol, which re­quired a com­pre­hen­sive de­sign, in­clu­sive of sur­veys, soil in­ves­ti­ga­tion and analy­sis. The re­quired so­lu­tion for is­sues of this na­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly along the Ca­roni Riv­er, is not sim­plis­tic and can­not be im­ple­ment­ed overnight,” the state­ment added.

The min­istry not­ed that such so­lu­tions re­quire ex­ten­sive time, ge­ot­ech­ni­cal and hy­draulic re­search to en­sure that the pro­posed en­gi­neer­ing mea­sure is ad­e­quate.

It said that to tem­porar­i­ly al­le­vi­ate this on­go­ing is­sue, the min­istry at­tempt­ed to ex­e­cute a short-term so­lu­tion which re­quired ac­cess to the failed por­tion of the em­bank­ment.

“The res­i­dent at this lo­ca­tion, how­ev­er, did not al­low ac­cess to the riv­er to en­able the min­istry to ex­e­cute the nec­es­sary works. To date, the Drainage Di­vi­sion has ex­haust­ed its avail­able op­tions to ac­cess the site via this pre­ferred point of en­try to ex­e­cute the tem­po­rary mea­sures.

“As a con­se­quence, an al­ter­na­tive op­tion has been de­vel­oped and will in­clude the re-es­tab­lish­ment of the em­bank­ment and re­align­ment of the riv­er from the north­ern em­bank­ment of the Ca­roni Riv­er,” the min­istry said.

It said these works are ex­pect­ed to com­mence in ap­prox­i­mate­ly one month.

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