RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As April show­ers be­gin, Williamsville res­i­dents are again brac­ing for peren­ni­al flood­ing as they call on the Min­istry of Works to be­gin clear­ing the Guaracara Riv­er.

Dur­ing an ear­ly morn­ing protest on Holy Thurs­day yes­ter­day, res­i­dents said the me­an­der­ing riv­er, which be­gins from Garth Road and emp­ties in­to the Gulf of Paria, was clogged in sev­er­al places.

De­spite re­peat­ed calls, the res­i­dents said noth­ing has been done to dredge the riv­er in its en­tire­ty.

Stand­ing on a bridge at Co­conut Dri­ve, Toolsie Gan­ga said, “Every year we face thou­sands of dol­lars in loss­es. As soon as the rains come we have to pack up be­long­ings and move every­thing to high­er ground.”

He said trees were grow­ing at the cen­tre of the riv­er and block­ages have gone un­no­ticed.

Res­i­dent Puni­lal Ba­booram, 86, said a bridge once used by cane cut­ters had fall­en in­to the riv­er, caus­ing a block­age. He be­lieves if the aban­doned bridge is cleared, the wa­ter will flow bet­ter.

Res­i­dent Par­ba­tee Ram­nar­ine-Ja­cob said she has been flood­ed out three times in the past. 

“This year, if it floods, I don’t know what will hap­pen to my house. This is crop time and the rains have now start­ed. Last time I lost every­thing, wardrobe, chest of draw­ers, fridge, mat­tress. When­ev­er the floods come the wa­ter goes straight in­to the house,” Ram­nar­ine-Ja­cob said.

Mean­while, MP for Na­pari­ma Rod­ney Charles has called on Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan to do com­pre­hen­sive dredg­ing of the en­tire riv­er, which is 30 kilo­me­tres long. He said he has raised the mat­ter in Par­lia­ment since 2017, yet every year his con­stituents ex­pe­ri­ence flood­ing.

“In this area, we have peren­ni­al an­nu­al flood­ing. We have piece­meal work be­ing done and this is not suf­fi­cient. We need a com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey of this wa­ter­course from the Cen­tral Range to the Gulf of Paria. We have a prob­lem with peo­ple dump­ing yes, but it is not right to say that the min­istry is not re­spon­si­ble or that Town and Coun­try is un­der­staffed. We want the Min­is­ter to start do­ing his job,” Charles said.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Sinanan said flood re­duc­tion work is on­go­ing in var­i­ous parts of the coun­try, in­clud­ing the Guaracara Riv­er. He said var­i­ous de­silt­ing works have al­ready been done to al­le­vi­ate flood­ing.