RESIDENTS at Lower Castle, St Peter, were unable to travel on that road for the past two days after rain washed eight inches of mud from a plantation field onto the road.
It was the fifth time iin two months that residents were affected by the mud spill, which prevented several of them from leaving their homes because the road was impassable.
“I was not able to go to work today,” said an upset Gregory Thompson, who also pointed out that he and another man spent several hours on Sunday cleaning a storm water well that had become filled with mud.Another resident said some children were also not able to attend school yesterday, and she described how several vehicles got stuck in the mud because drivers were unable to determine how much mud really covered the road.
However, by yesterday afternoon a team from the Drainage Unit had removed the mud with the use of a Bobcat and a truck which made eight trips dumping the mud.
An employee at the Drainage Unit said the unit’s workers had removed the mud on all five occasions but yesterday was the worst so far.Residents said the spill occurred because Castle Plantation was no longer planting canes, which had served as a barrier over the years.
“When the ground was planted with cane, it ran parallel to the road; but now it is planted with cassava and yam, it is running perpendicular and it is bringing mud onto the road whenever it rains,” explained Thompson, who also pointed out that it took only five inches of rainfall in one hour on Saturday to fill up the road with mud.But Trevor Lewis, a supervisor at the plantation, argued that the design of the road, which was constructed by the Urban Development Commission nine years ago, was the problem.“This is all agricultural lands and tenantry lands, and you would expect to be affected from the agricultural lands since we are no longer planting khus khus grass. We try our best to assist when this happens but Government will have to come and look at the design of the road,” he said, pointing to a descent in the middle of the road.
