RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA
rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Re­pairs done on the 14 sluice flood gates found at the Trinidad Point Gate site in Wood­land have failed, caus­ing an in­flux of salt­wa­ter to gush in­land, pos­si­bly af­fect­ing hun­dreds of acres of arable land.

Footage of the salt­wa­ter in­tru­sion was cap­tured by the pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group, Ed­ward Mood­ie on Thurs­day, dur­ing high tide.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mood­ie said for the past month, the on­go­ing re­pair works have stopped.

"The wa­ter is flow­ing up­stream, up the Bhag­ma­nia and Trinidad Rivers straight in­to Wood­land, and that is why the area can­not drain," Mood­ie said.

He added: "The flood gates have failed. The tem­po­rary mea­sures put in place are not work­ing. The sheets have fall­en in­to the riv­er. The salt­wa­ter is flow­ing freely, spoil­ing hun­dreds and hun­dreds of acres of arable lands and in­un­dat­ing res­i­den­tial ar­eas with wa­ter."

He ex­plained that res­i­dents were now brac­ing for flood dev­as­ta­tion.

"The 14-sluice flood gate in Wood­land is sup­posed to be un­der re­pair. The con­trac­tor aban­doned the project and some of the sheets he put up to per­ma­nent­ly block off the gate have fall­en, and salt­wa­ter is rush­ing non­stop. It is flow­ing in the wrong di­rec­tion," Mood­ie added.

He called on the Min­is­ter of Works, Ro­han Sinanan, to deal with the prob­lem.

"Pay the con­trac­tor and let them fin­ish this job,” Mood­ie urged.  “At this stage of the rainy sea­son, we can­not af­ford to shut down a project like this. Drainage work­ers are out clear­ing the edges of the wa­ter­cours­es and do­ing their work. We are ask­ing for the gates to be fin­ished be­fore the heavy down­pour that is ex­pect­ed in the next few months," Mood­ie added.

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Flood Ac­tion Group, Adesh Singh, told Guardian Me­dia the out­dat­ed pumps at the gates were un­able to con­trol the wa­ter flow.

"We have 14 gates. Re­pairs on sev­en of them had start­ed but the con­trac­tor on­ly did four. One of the gates has fall­en in­to the riv­er and we have an in­rush of wa­ter from the high tide. Be­cause of the heavy rain­fall, we have a lot of sur­face run-off, and the riv­er is full. The wa­ter is go­ing in­to Wood­land, rather than ex­it­ing Wood­land. We have Trinidad Riv­er and the Bhag­ma­nia Riv­er here, which have not been prop­er­ly de-silt­ed," he added.

Singh al­so said the pump is in­ad­e­quate.

"This pump should be placed in a mu­se­um. The gauges are bro­ken, dis­con­nect­ed, there are leaks and cracks. That pump is small com­pared to the vol­ume of wa­ter that comes down here. It can­not han­dle the wa­ter," Singh said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said in Ju­ly last year, the Min­istry start­ed the up­grade of the Trinidad Point Gate site in Wood­land to re­fur­bish 14 sluice gates, al­low mo­tor­iza­tion of 10 of the 14 gates, as well as to in­stall an elec­tri­cal con­trol pan­el.

"How­ev­er, be­cause of COVID-19, im­por­ta­tion of the re­quired mo­tors, fit­ting and cou­pling mech­a­nisms have been af­fect­ed. So far, four gates have been re­placed and six gates are sched­uled to be re­fur­bished," he ex­plained.

"The con­trac­tor vis­it­ed the site to­day and a tem­po­rary sluice gate will be in­stalled to pre­vent the salt­wa­ter in­tru­sion," he added.

Sinanan said the job is 60 per cent com­plet­ed.

"Some of the tem­po­rary struc­tures were af­fect­ed and the con­trac­tor re­mains on-site and has per­mis­sion from the Min­is­ter of Health to con­tin­ue work," Sinanan added.

He said works were on­go­ing but had been halt­ed af­ter the gov­ern­ment banned con­struc­tion.