Dear Editor,
With reference to the news item in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek `Residents devise plan to dam Dochfour’, what can be done to relieve the situation?
The government has got to get the Guyana gold mining workers involved.
Those boys can set up a 10-inch gravel pump dredge called a missile on a drum pontoon. The gravel pump can extract 30 to fifty tons of silt in a single 8-hour shift.
They need to make wooden frame boxes like a fence and fill up the space with coconut brooms, then line the bank of the canal for about 100 feet. The dredge will throw the silt behind this temporary wall and the brooms will trap the silt from running back into the canal with the water. When that portion of canal is done, move the wall to the next 100 feet and so on.
Encourage the farmers to plant lemon grass on the embankments of all their farming drains and canals. It is not the perfect solution, but it will work to hold the top soil from further erosion and runoff, until it can be replaced with the Ventiver grass.
The Ventiver International Network is a self funded organisation that goes to different countries and demonstrate that the Ventiver grass is the only viable, cost effective and permanent solution to land erosion problems.
International banks will not support this organisation because the Ventiver solution is low cost but labour intensive. The international banks are not interested in paying out their loans to local labour. They want to pay big chunks of it back to their consultants and heavy equipment dealerships.
The Ventiver grass will create roots of “steel” 13 feet deep straight into the soil. Not only will it hold the soil from runoff, it will also filter out the fertilizers, pesticides and heavy metals from the farmland runoff.
This grass will also filter out the toxins in grey water, sewage sludge and nitrate buildup in fishponds. It does not grow by seed propagation, you have to separate the plant into smaller bundles and replant. It can become an instant source of income to all villagers, they simply float their young plants on styrofoam rafts or bamboo and leave it to float in their gutters, so that it cleans up the toxins in the gutter at the same time.
The leaves and stalks can be used for basketry handicraft, it can also be used for thatched roofs. Once the use of this grass becomes widespread, the dried leaves can also be harvested as biofuel to drive steam turbines to provide electricity.
Another tip, mosquitoes do not like the smell of lemon grass. Citronella oil, is a lemon grass oil extract, so you can solve two major problems with the lemon grass solution.
It will take some time and effort but this problem can be solved permanently. They have got to stop listening to the advice of these foreign consultants.
These high paid folks have been trained to solve such problems with heavy machinery, concrete, stone and steel, which erodes after a while and is very costly to maintain.
It will cost approximately US$7M dollars per mile for work and materials and maintenance if done the western way.
The entire purpose of any of their development plans is not progress. It is driven by profit, they do not care if the plan works or not. If you have enough money they will stick around, when the money runs out they are gone. The government is left with the loan repayment.
Yours faithfully,
Joe Coxall
(Comment extracted from the Stabroek News website)
This Idea is called “COMMON SENSE”
So….wait a minute here! Now Miners are replacing our Engineers? WOW….COMMON SENSE….Hmmmmmm!
I am surprised that this misslie system is not used on the coast for desilting purposes when it is the main way for removing top soil on river beds and river banks. Missiles can go up to 14 inches in diameter and having personally managed one of these water assisted gravel and over burden rememoving monsters my calculation is that they can remove more than 50 tons in an 8 hr. shift. My only worry is clogging due to the dumping of trash (tires etc)into the water ways on the coast.
This is something worth looking into. Levies can be widened and new ones built during the dry season.
clogging wont be a problem Greg, if it hits a tire, you will feel the lurch and only water start coming up, you slow the engine and by pass the tire.
Joe.
….. Joe ,, i hate to rain — the pun is unintentional– or ur parade ,, but like the rest of all,, including the “mba guy” ur’s is in the same category,, of the D&I (DUMBPERTS&INDOLENTS)with their “band-aid ,, spit an chewing gum wid duct tape” solutions ! ur intentions r well meant i know ,, but there is the reminder that ,, it’s not a lasting solution ! and the more we try to hide ourselves from admiting that the problem is much more complex than is on the surface ,, the better we will be in channeling our limited resources to implement the kind of answer to what is going to be a perpetual yoke ,, that will not only cripple the economy ,, but will be responsible for many deaths as the “pattern” continues….
rain on the continent of which we r a part does not only fall in GY ,, it falls “all the time in the rain forest” and when it’s summertime in the Andes ,, like it is now ,,until FEBRUARY of ‘09 ,, the equatorial
peaks of the Andes is under severe melt,,,,, all of the above and more is the complexity of the landscape to which we belong and can not wish away,, and is further compounded with the many other variables in the equation such as “climate change”
for now ,, it is useful to employ ur suggestions ,, but ,, i reiterate ,, it will only be temporary until it gets worse ,,
and is no longer controlable ! i make no plea here for anyone to pay me any mind ,, for there r those here who ,, r attacking me ,, simply bcos they r “un-able” to fathom the magnitude of this constant that is not going any place soon ! the only way for the water to flow over the “rim” of the “basin” is for the flood to rise above the rim by it’s own force ,, this will not happen , — not yet anyway — this is expected to happen in 2010 when the water that is now being stagnant
saturates the entire “GUIANA SHIELD” that is made up of GUYANA,, suriname,, and French Guiana ,, these being west of the Amazon river whose daily deposit at it’s mouth where it meets the Atlantic ocean is 3+ million tons of silt “each day” which is then dispersed by the guyana current helped by the north east trade winds on the shores of the “guiana shield” where GUYANA commands the longest shoreline !
can u see the futility of the “band-aid” mentality ,, when ur back yard is in a “basin”,, the basin is being filled slowly,,and nature is laying foundation “every day” at the the “rim” of the basin where u live ????????????????????????????????????????????????????,, how much money do u have or expect to beg for to alleviate that which is akin to sisyphus ! anyone familiar with topography will readily accept that to aviod getting their feet wet ,, they MUST get to higher elevations ,,b4 it’s all too late ! what is happening now is the water is moving not only in GY ,,,but in suriname and French Guiana too,, F/Guiana will suffer the least from what is unfolding ,, since it is elevated much higher at it’s shoreline unlike suriname and GY ,, the contours of our shoreline from the corentyne river is the reason why
the Atlantic at very high tides come crashing over the pathetic sea defence that is designed to impact nature ! the force of which is beyond that which man is able to control,, at least not with the budget of the govt of GUYANA !……
MT,you would make better sense if you talk either FULL CREOLESE or STANDARD ENGLISH to help us to understand, not the lazy, internetspeake excuse for a language that you are using. And you still haven’t answered my question: How does water flow UPHILL from the Balbina reservoir OVER the Sierra Acaria in southern Guyana? If you really know what you are talking about you can break down complex hydraulics and hydrology for laypeople to understand. Or reference to some reputable Internet sources or other good sources will help.
M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett,
You know, I try to allow an atmoshpere, where we all can accomodate each others blog comment regardless of if we agree with it or not, as long as it is positive, but this friend of ours Mike Tennessee, his writings is either so highly intellectual that I understand none of it or he is totally off the wall.
Help me here, what is it?
Joe.
It’s Tannassee. Guess he’s one of the Tannassees from Adventure C/tyne. Bright people. Paul and so on. I know some of them. But this Michael T seems to be totally off the wall. I’ve been asking him for the longest while to explain how water can flow from the Balbina reservoir UPHILL and OVER the Sierra Acaria mountain range, which borders Guyana’s south and Brazil, into southern Guyana. I asked him for reliable Internet references or some other reliable source documents for this incredible idea. And you know the man hasn’t replied. It is my belief that when someone makes an incredible claim the onus is on HIM to supply the proof, not for his listeners to do so. He should put up or shut up let us know he’s just pulling our collective legs. I know all about the Amazon basin etc. and a wee bit of hydraulics and hydrology. I see he’s now playing around with ’saturation of the Guyana shield.’ I think we should just ignore him or humour him because he has nothing constructive to offer.
sn, please foward this letter immediately to the relevant authorities.
… this comment has nothing to do with anything here ! but as a JEW !
albeit non practicing– i feel especially at this time of year when in the land of the birth of Christ,, that the Jews who gave him up to be crucified yet claim that they r the chosen people of god ,, whose son , as “man” they villified ! and where the major 3 religions on the planet reside r displaying the very same mindset of 2000+years past! in a land created for them by the british and to a large extent the USA ,, whose double standards is universally known ,, and is made evident with their heaping support for the wholesale “murder” of innocent CHILDREN ! in GAZA,,,, like bush ,, rice,, has been for the past 8 years a dismal failure to achieve anything except chalking up untold flying miles ,, all at the expense of the tax payers ! the
blood of those children and all who died at the hands of a few ,, who has no birth right to the land they occupy since 1947 ,, when at the behest of the british empire (curse of the planet)israel was made a state and the palestinians r now stateless ! is on the hands of this asministration including that of powell who jumped ship to support obama bcos of race ,, and some shame from what he engineered that is now 1 trillion bucks that includes life,, blood and,, limb of the BRAVE ! i ask u to join me incondemning this belligerence of a barbaric people perpetrated on the palestinian people at this time !
what a start for BARACK OBAMA ! for such a frail looking guy ,,, i wonder abt his mental fortitude !……
Well michael T i agree with you my friend, on the situation in the gaza strip, politics as usual with the so-called jewish state of israel and their zionit cohorts, and with the backing of the u.s.a and the U.K it’s just an outright advantage.
RIGHT! “this comment has nothing to do with anything here!” Why the moderator allowed such a TOTALLY IRRELEVANT comment is beyond me. Can I try some of my own, Moderator!
And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and cloven tongues as of fire appeared on their head… It was sparks in front the eyes that you get when you’ve hyperventilated. Very exhilarating when you’re saturated with O2. You can fall down and so on….