Repair work begins on 5 breaches at New Cut Channel

Work has started in the Penal area to repair five major breaches on a riverbank, and Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan estimates the project will cost between $10-$12 million. The work began on Saturday at the New Cut Channel and is expected to take a month.

The minister made the statement when he toured the Drainage Division South (Calco pump site), at Tulsa Trace in Penal. The area was affected by flooding about two weeks ago.

He said after "technical investigations," the five breaches were identified.

"We promised residents that once we have the engineering solutions to it, we will start," Sinanan told the media.

"Once these projects start, they remain ongoing because the workers may see other breaches that need to be repaired."

Sinanan toured together with the Minister in the Ministry of Works and Transport Richie Sookhai, director of the ministry's Drainage Division Katherine Badloo Doerga, and acting permanent secretary Ronald Alfred.

He said one challenge workers face is getting materials to the breach areas, because most of the materials must be trucked in and moved across the river as there is no access road to the breaches.

"It is not just about pulling the materials from the water back into the bank. We have to bring in materials that can withstand the pressures and forces of the water. So it is a major project. It will take some time, but we have the contractor on the ground," Sinanan said.

"There are different materials to be used, and the clay materials are put on top to lock the bank in place. People like to use works like 'desilt and dredging.' It is not as simple as some people think."

Sinanan said the ministry has had an aggressive ongoing drainage programme nationwide since 2018. This country has 14 pump sites, and all have to be upgraded. The ministry has been upgrading all the pump sites with the new modern high-speed pumps. He said work is ongoing at several sites, works had been completed on others, and tenders are out for the rest.

"Obviously, all cannot be upgraded at the same time. The programme was supposed to be for three years, but because of the pandemic everything got pushed back, as almost everything for the sites had to be imported and manufactured with specs," Sinanan said.

He said drainage are expensive projects, adding that some people question why the ministry does not fix the banks of the entire river.

"The cost to build the banks and clean the entire river might be the drainage's budget for three years, so we have to then prioritise areas. We are doing a lot of desilting as well as building banks in certain areas, upgrading the pumps, and widening rivers wherever we have capacity."

He referred to the drainage programme as a long-term "all-encompassing programme."

He cited global warming as a contributor to flooding, saying the "real downpour" of the rainy season comes in October-November.

"What we saw this year is at the end of April. The showers have been there and they are not easing up. We are getting a different weather pattern now, and it seems to be the new norm," Sinanan said.

He charged that flooding is happening worldwide, including in developed countries.

"Trinidad will not be spared. We are at the point where we have to put all hands on deck. At all the breaches, all the rivers where the banks are toppling are either people building on the river bank, cutting the river bank, or planting on the river bank. Most of the settlements are almost in the flood plains," Sinanan said.

"We could have gotten away with that in the past because we had one or two months of heavy downpours. I don't think we will be able to get away with that again. We have to revisit where we develop, how we build, and how we treat the environment."

The minister said everyone has ideas on how to solve flooding. He recalled someone suggested building an island at sea to help with the flooding.

"I do not know where these ideas came from. If they find themselves in my shoes one day and understand how it operates, they would find that the pie-in-the-sky solutions are nice dreams."

He said the ministry targeted 500 desilting projects this year, which have increased to 524. That figure is the most ever attempted by the ministry in history.