RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing protests over a block­age at the Godineau Riv­er caused by an aban­doned 36-inch wa­ter main, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) Kelvin Ro­maine has as­sured south­ern fish­er­folk that the de­bris will be re­moved from the riv­er mouth soon.

Re­spond­ing to a heat­ed protest on Tues­day morn­ing, Ro­maine said, "We have en­gaged a con­trac­tor and a con­tract was award­ed."

The pipeline and sup­port­ing steel struc­ture had been block­ing ac­cess for sev­en months forc­ing at least 10 fish­er­men from Wood­land to aban­don their trade and seek work else­where.

Asked why the re­moval was tak­ing so long, Ro­maine said, "Be­cause of the tech­ni­cal na­ture of the job, we had to en­sure that we have a qual­i­fied con­trac­tor. The re­moval of the pipeline and rack is im­mi­nent."

Dur­ing the protests, the pres­i­dent of the Wood­land Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Alvin Ho­sei­nee, said sev­er­al boats have al­ready been dam­aged by the de­bris left in the riv­er.

He said fish­ing was no longer lu­cra­tive as fish­er­men could not go out at night in fear of dam­ag­ing their boats near the riv­er mouth.

"We are ask­ing the au­thor­i­ties to help us be­cause this is tak­ing too long to be re­moved," he added.

Pres­i­dent of the Flood Ac­tion Group Adesh Singh said fish stocks were dwin­dling be­cause of the block­ages. He said usu­al­ly fish trav­el up the riv­er mouth to spawn in ar­eas near the man­groves. How­ev­er, he said be­cause of de­bris the fish stocks were ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed.

He al­so said since the con­struc­tion of the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion, sev­er­al mi­nor trib­u­taries of the Godineau Riv­er were al­so blocked with de­bris.

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group Ed­ward Mood­ie said the mat­ter has been raised with the MP Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe as well as Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

"The last com­ment from the Min­is­ter was that it will be ten­dered but we are still wait­ing. This is a dis­as­ter wait­ing to hap­pen. How can you have a pipe rack block­ing a main wa­ter­course for sev­en months and noth­ing has been done to al­le­vi­ate this sit­u­a­tion," Mood­ie said.

He ex­plained that Wood­land, Pe­nal/Debe and Bar­rack­pore ex­pe­ri­enced ex­ten­sive flood­ing be­cause of the block­age at the mouth of the riv­er.

"We are look­ing at scrap iron deal­ers to see if this is a vi­able op­tion. If you give us the op­tion to get the cheap­est quo­ta­tion. We will need a crane. Let them come in and move it out. This will cause flood­ing and we want this to be re­moved now," Mood­ie said.

He said no riv­er banks have been re­paired and even though the Min­is­ter of Works said there were 500 de­silt­ing projects, he has not re­vealed where the projects took place.

Dr Bo­doe said he is ex­pect­ed to raise the mat­ter in Par­lia­ment soon.

An­janie Jairam, pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce said when­ev­er there are floods, the econ­o­my is im­pact­ed.

"We are con­cerned when the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is af­fect­ed be­cause we can­not get our sup­plies in­to the com­mu­ni­ties," Jairam said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Min­is­ter Gon­za­les who said he will be ad­dress­ing the is­sue of the aban­doned pipeline when the Par­lia­ment con­venes on Wednes­day.