Recent heavy rainfall has seen the Abary conservancy rise to a high level, resulting in excess water being discharged over the spill weir, but officials reported on Wednesday that the dams are safe.
The officials, including Chairman of the Mahaica-Mahaicony-Abary/ Agricultural-Development/ Authority (MMA/ADA), Rudolph Gajraj; General Manager, Aubrey Charles and Region Five chairman, Harrinarine Baldeo took Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud on a “familiarisation visit” to the conservancy.
The team visited the Daageraad spill weir, which is a 5,000 ft long concrete reinforced structure and observed water spilling over as the level reached 64 GD (Georgetown Datum).
Water was flowing over the spill weir into the “burrow trench” and into the Herstelling swamps towards the Berbice River a few miles away. This newspaper learnt that other conservancies do not have spill weirs, but a number of escape outlets that lead to the Demerara River.
A former senior employee related that without the spill weir there would be “excess pressure on the conservancy dam which is already susceptible because it situated in a pagasse area.”
Persaud told the media that he was pleased to have a first-hand look at the conservancy, which is very important to saving farmers’ crops. He is confident that the second rice crop would see significant improvement.
He said government was working on a plan to improve the MMA scheme and that a new fleet of machinery has been deployed to undertake secondary drainage works. He said the farmers were supposed to take care of the secondary drainage, but have neglected their duties.
He said the farmers were benefiting from the facilities provided by MMA and called on them to honour their responsibilities by paying up their taxes.
Travelling the 30-mile distance from the MMA office at Onverwagt to the conservancy took approximately one and a half hours along the dam and the canal amid heavy showers.
A brief stop was made at the Main Canal Head Regulator (MCHR) which regulates the flow of water from the conservancy into the main irrigation canal.
According to Charles, the MCHR supplies water for irrigation to the rice land. He said engineering surveys – of profile and cross section levels – are conducted twice yearly to determine where “settlement” of the dams takes place.
The team also visited the Wairuni area where an inspection of the dams that were heightened during last year, was done and expressed satisfaction with the work.
The officials also stopped at the seven-door sluice, situated at Cogeman and Gajraj pointed out that the sluice could not be opened when the level of water in the conservancy was high as it could result in flooding. But he said the sluice was used “in terms of relieving the conservancy…”
He said the whole operation of the conservancy was in good shape and that equipment was available permanently to carry out works. (Shabna Ullah)
