JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

South Oropouche River clogged

months after $12M repairs

by

333 days ago
20240321

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

South Oropouche fish­er­men are re­new­ing their call for the gov­ern­ment to dredge and clean the South Oropouche Riv­er to stop the im­pend­ing de­struc­tion of 300 acres of pas­tures and 165 acres of arable agri­cul­tur­al land. 

Once over 50 feet in depth, the riv­er has now been re­duced to a two-foot-deep chan­nel, mak­ing it im­pass­able to fish­er­men dur­ing low tide. 

Fish­er­man Raj Ram­lal said since the gov­ern­ment spent $12 mil­lion to re­pair breach­es in the bank, the riverbed has be­come clogged and nar­rowed to a width of 12 feet as the em­bank­ment has col­lapsed.

The area be­hind the Kalco pump­house at Tul­sa Trace is bad­ly erod­ed. The pump­house was ren­o­vat­ed two years ago yet the clamps on the pump’s out­fall pipe were dis­lodged by the land slip­page.

 Ram­lal said fish­er­men are un­able to come up the riv­er in low tide. 

“Our boats get stuck in the mud so we can no longer pass here. This is a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen. If the riv­er can­not ac­com­mo­date the vol­ume of wa­ter, it will back up and bring floods through­out Debe and Pe­nal,” he said. 

Pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group Ed­ward Mood­ie agreed that the $12 mil­lion works done by the Min­istry had ex­ac­er­bat­ed the prob­lem.

 “Why is there no con­sul­ta­tion with UWI en­gi­neers when con­trac­tors are do­ing this job? Every­thing they did has failed. Why are they not us­ing the UWI re­sources to de­vel­op prop­er en­gi­neer­ing meth­ods? You can send to UWI the GPS map­ping and they will tell you ex­act­ly what soil type there is in any area of Wood­land which has 11 to 14 dif­fer­ent soil types,” he said.

Mood­ie said the riv­er is an im­por­tant part of the South Oropouche Drainage Basin and if it can­not ac­com­mo­date the flow, there will be a back­up of floods in Pe­nal and Debe when the rainy sea­son comes and the vol­ume of wa­ter as far as Moru­ga backs up.

 “Ra­hamut Trace alone has 165 acres of agri­cul­tur­al lands. All of that will be wiped out if this riv­er is not cleaned and prop­er­ly dredged. They need to bring in the long-armed ex­ca­va­tor and clear the riv­er,” he said. 

He ex­plained that cat­tle farm­ers of­ten have to trans­port their an­i­mals on boats when the flood­ing be­gins.

“We need gabion bas­kets to be used, piles on both sides. An old drainage map from the 1960s shows this is where the old riv­er passed. These con­trac­tors are not us­ing the draw­ings when they are de­vel­op­ing en­gi­neer­ing so­lu­tions,” he said.

The may­or of Siparia Dood­nath Mayrhoo ex­pressed con­cern that the breach­es on the New Cut Chan­nel will trig­ger mas­sive flood­ing.

“We are in the mid­dle of the dry sea­son and we ex­pect that work should have start­ed al­ready. We are ex­pect­ing a very ac­tive rainy sea­son and these breach­es in this riv­er will trig­ger se­vere flood­ing. The Min­istry needs to get its act to­geth­er,” he said. 

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan said the Drainage Di­vi­sion is aware of the slip­page at Tul­sa Trace.

 “The Min­istry has en­gaged a firm to do a full ge­ot­ech­ni­cal study of the area,” he said. “This study will de­ter­mine the cause of the slip as well as the prop­er en­gi­neer­ing so­lu­tion to im­ple­ment to re­pair the slip­page.”


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored