Severe flooding has once again hit parts of the Mahaica and Mahaicony Creeks after three days of intense rainfall and some fed up residents there are ready to leave.
As they have done in the past, some are speculating that the water was released from the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC), but officials have said that this was not so.
A few rice farmers told this newspaper yesterday that although the rain had eased up the water kept rising instead of receding and they have already lost their rice and cash crops.
“Mahaicony Creek turn a drainage canal because the MMA [Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary] conservancy spill-weir cannot take off the volume of water so the water leak and come in the right bank of the Mahaicony River,” one farmer charged. “When they open the conservancy it flows into Butanabu and drain into the left bank of the Mahaicony Creek.
“I live in this creek for over 40 years and that is how I know first-hand what is happening.”
Contacted, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture said he wanted to assure the residents in the creek that no water was released. “The conservancy is at a safe level and we don’t need to blow the water,” he said. “But if we do decide to blow it the Minister [of Agriculture Robert Persaud] would let them know.”
He said though that the water level in St Cuthbert’s Mission was very high and it was receding through the creeks – resulting in the water rising there – to get to the Atlantic.
Rice farmer Dillip Sookdeo of Pine Ground, Mahaicony Creek told this newspaper that he recently spent over $1 million to invest in 60 acres of rice but he lost the entire crop as the field is submerged.
The distressed Sookdeo said this was the fourth crop loss in a row. He said he had kept investing with the hope that the next crop would be better but “every crop we continue to suffer
