The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

SEVERAL prominent government ministers and senior representatives came together for a press briefing yesterday to discuss government’s three-year flood remediation plan.

Following last weekend’s unprecedented rainfall of more than 12.37 inches that flooded several communities in western New Providence, various government agencies explained how they planned to tackle future flooding incidents.

The officials came together at the Town Planning hearing room.

Henry Moxey, senior engineer at the Ministry of Works, during the briefing said his ministry had already commenced a drainage cleaning and well maintenance programme across New Providence.

Mr Moxey specifically highlighted that this programme had “remarkably” helped relieve the flooding in Pinewood Gardens due to recent well cleaning in the area.

While Mr Moxey called Saturday’s flooding a “freak phenomenon”, which had water from the lakes out west overflowing into the roads, he said the Ministry of Works planned to immediately address this issue.

“We have set in motion, in a very, very short time, our well drilling programme will start,” Mr Moxey said. “We will also not only be drilling wells, but also installing backflow valves so that we will also be holding back the tides that may come up through those wells during high tide events. So, that will be in the next few days those contracts will go out.”

“We have begun our aggressive maintenance programme. We will be beginning to, along areas that experienced flooding, particularly in the western New Providence, revisit those areas where the water actually kept and try to put in the proper drainage infrastructure that will allow those waters to come off. We are also going to be dealing with areas even looking at Coral Harbour. We have designs already for the main road into the Coral Harbour area that are ready to go out for tendering.”

However, Mr Moxey attributed some of the island’s recent flooding woes to a lack of proper drainage infrastructure being part of the planning of many of the capital’s communities.

“What we have in Nassau we are now putting in place drainage infrastructure in areas where drainage infrastructure should have gone ahead of the development. So, the cart would have been put before the horse, but we are trying to put the horse back in front where it ought to be.”

Mr Moxey added that while they are trying to rectify that issue, his ministry in collaboration with the other relevant agencies, is also trying to find short and long-term plans to prevent flooding.

“The initiatives that are already in place are the wells and squalls that are in place. The ARCO system is something that we are doing in the next few months. We are going through the tendering process in order to bring on board the requisite contractor or the appropriate contractor who would go ahead and install the prototype system in the Pinewood Garden community.

“The deep well is something that we would hopefully get to sign off today that we can engage that contractor probably in the next week or so in order to get him started in an area that is notorious for flooding. That’s the Jones Heights community.”

During questions from the press Mr Sears said that in view of the issues arising from global warming, deforestation and increasingly severe hurricanes the time has come for the government to take “comprehensive” action against flooding.

He said: “What normally happens, which is cleaning of squalls and various wells, is not sufficient. And given that this will be a very active hurricane season and the fact that two years ago we had a category 5 where communities in our northern region were devastated, with a loss of up to $3.4bn, it is time that we take a more comprehensive approach to the issue of flooding,” Mr Sears said.

“Nassau, New Providence where we live, is an unplanned city and as Mr Moxey correctly stated, the cart has been well ahead of the horse. We are now trying to rectify as we seek to mitigate.”

The Minister of Public Works also noted his ministry is proposing a building code for land use that prevents people from developing on wetlands to further prevent future flood events.

In detailing how the government plans to roll out this initiative, Minister Sears said that funding will be determined in the upcoming budget and that budget will increase annually as the project is enacted and studied over three years.