THE FIRST DOWNPOURS for this year’s hurricane season came this week, with no flooding in flood-prone districts.
And where there was a build-up of water, like in some areas at Cherry Grove, St John, and Bush Hall, Spring Garden, and Fontabelle in St Michael, it quickly receded.
Though it’s early days yet for what is forecast to be a turbulent season, this was good news. It demonstrated that the extensive work undertaken across the island by the Drainage Division in the Ministry of the Environment, Water Resources and Drainage had passed its first real test.
For many years, one of the main causes identified for flooding here has been the poor maintenance of drains built to accept and carry off water in areas where a lot of construction has blocked natural water courses.
Of course, much sterner tests will come within the next few weeks and months. How the gutters, canals, sewers and wells manage this relentless deluge will ultimately decide the success or failure of the remedial work done by the division over time.
Here it must be noted that in spite of the division’s best efforts, flooding will occur if the volume of rain is so great that it overpowers the structures built to take it away. That is, if a drain is designed to take away ten cubic metres of water per minute and the rain is falling at 15 cubic metres, then obviously flooding will occur.
That said, the success to date should be commended.
The areas of Sunset Crest and Holetown in St James need special mention. Flooding occurs here as a result of the encroachment of building development and the change in land form and land use without expanding the drainage system to cope with the increased run-off, the major mitigation work done lived up to expectations.
This was due to the work undertaken in the area by the drainage division and the National Conservation Commission, on the one hand, and the developers of the Lime Grove property, on the other.
The latter undertaking was particularly significant. A concrete canal eight times the capacity of previously constructed infrastructure to alleviate flooding in the area has been built. Along with this, a number of irrigation ponds built at Apes Hill, about two miles uphill of Holetown, now trap millions of gallons of water that would normally have flowed into this town.
These costly and corrective measures reduce the likelihood of any major run-off from uphill reaching Holetown, which is sandwiched downslope between the lands on Highway 2A and the sea. It should also stop the phenomenon of the area being flooded even without a drop of rain falling there.
The social responsibility of these private developers must be applauded. It is in keeping with the spirit of our 1982 companies legislation, and is a good example of how profit-driven enterprises can take into account the removal of some aspects of what might be called environmental blight, to the benefit of the larger community, without wrecking the companies’ bottom lines.
The building of new canals, the cleaning of the extensive network across the island, and the ongoing Operation Clean City project, which is carried out every Sunday, seems to have paid off.
This sterling effort by Government can all come to nought, however, if people continue to indiscriminately dump their garbage.
Such garbage gets into gratings and well openings and hampers water flow, which can lead to flooding. These materials, from styrofoam and plastic containers to old stoves, televisions and fridges, also block drains and water courses.
The public can therefore help stop flooding by disposing of their refuse responsibly, because maintaining the environment is the responsibility of every one of us!
