Dear Editor,
I wanted to respond to a recent article (Jan 20) regarding irrigation for farmers in Region Two. The main regulator at Red Lock was closed when I was there in December, 2007, and the water level in the main canal was at its lowest. When I resigned as Overseer in December, 1981, this structure was not there. From the time that the Tapakuma project was opened in 1964 to the time when I left in December, 1981 the main canal level was mostly between 57.00 GD and 58.00 GD. The main canal has to always maintain a level of around 58.00 GD, especially during irrigation, and this can only be done with the four pumps at Dawa working 24/7. It will certainly take a lot of time and a lot of water to raise the main canal level when it is empty to a level of 58.00 GD. Dawa was not designed to raise the water level from an empty main canal to the required operational level of 58.00 GD. No amount of pumping can do that. Dawa was designed to maintain a water level of 58.00 GD when the water level in the main canal was already at 58.00 GD.
The four pumps at Dawa must work 24/7 during irrigation and pumping must begin before the level in the main canal drops below the operational level of 58.00 GD. I am not an engineer, but I do know from experience, that, when the water level in the main canal drops below the operational level requirements during irrigation, the Dawa pumps cannot raise the level. The simple fact is that during irrigation, several regulators are opened at the same time, and the volume of water that goes out to the paddy fields is much greater than the volume that comes from the four pumps. Coffee Grove has the largest regulator, which is usually kept open for long periods. When this regulator is opened, only three or four other regulators can be opened. There were long periods of dry weather during my time as Overseer, but farmers were never asked to delay planting. It is my view that with proper knowledge of the operating system, and with the four pumps working 24/7, every acre of rice land in Region Two can be successfully irrigated, even in the dry season. It was done previously, and, although much more land is now under cultivation, it can be done.
Dawa is located many miles aback of Anna Regina and it is most difficult and very costly to get fuel there on a regular basis. The only road to and from Dawa can be impassable at times. To maintain the Dawa pumps and the entire Tapakuma irrigation system is very costly. Except for Dawa which was refurbished a few years ago, most of the main canal and the infrastructures are over fifty years old. When I was there most of the regulator doors were vandalized and sandbags had to be used instead. Also, most of the regulators and the gates at Dawa leaked considerably. The main canal needs to be desilted without delay. The Tapakuma Irrigation Scheme is a great engineering system, which needs constant maintenance. The system, certainly, is not a failure. The failure, as Mr Charles Sohan wrote (Jan 21), is as a result of many years of mismanagement, incompetence, deterioration of infrastructures, and I would add to that list, vandalism. I think that if and when these problems are corrected, Dawa and the Tapakuma Irrigation Scheme will again become very successful.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Majeed
