Reducing flooding on the Abary

Dear Editor,

Rice farmers on the MMA ADA project should praise the MMA ADA for their good work. I know for years many suffered hardship from bad drainage and irrigation. During the 2010-11 spring crop many farmers could not cultivate their plots because of the heavy rainfall, and of those who did it involved a lot of expense. This was not the fault of MMA ADA; they could not control the rain. All the drainage and irrigation canals were working and maintained well by them. However, the MMAADA was designed as a dry-weather project, but with climate change rain doesn’t have a season; it falls any time.

Farmers on the right and left banks of the Abary could not have expected heavy flooding with the good work MMA ADA had done from the bridge going to the river mouth by uprooting all the overhanging trees and throwing them on the ground. This would help drain the Abary River, the channel would get a better draught and the river mouth would not block up.

The next good work they need to do would be to cut the One Mile Foulis turn, where the river nearly doubles back to the same place, and straighten it by digging a canal. There would then be a better flow since water from the Mahaicony backlands escapes and overfloods the Abary River. After that they should clean the Mahaicony and the Mahaica Rivers from the bridges to the river mouths, but since there are houses there and only one side can be cleared, they should uproot the trees from one side until they come to the area where there are no houses. This would deepen the channels of both rivers and help reduce the flooding.

The President spoke some time ago about dredging these three rivers, but this would deepen the channels and push salt water inside them, and that would be worse than flooding.

Yours faithfully,
Bramdeow Singh