The head of the Torani Canal has become progressively shallower as the banks of the canal are eroding and sliding into the water. This is where the Guyana Sugar Corpora-tion Inc’s (GuySuCo) five-gates sluice is located, that allows water to flow from the Berbice River into the Canje River, in order to maintain the levels of the latter for irrigation purposes.
This situation, according to workers who operate the gate for the sugar company, could pose a great risk to the sugar cane plants and the crops of farmers in Region Six, as less water is flowing into the canal from the Berbice River.
According to Aubrey Harris, who worked all his life on the five-gates compound before he retired and whose three sons continue to operate the gates, the last contractor that dug the canal used the same silt which was dug up to shore up the shoulders of the banks. This is not supposed to be done as the silt is just sand.
“They had to get mud to do this and they would have had to fetch it from the back which would have cost more. I tried to stop them from doing that [using the silt] but they just did it anyway,” Harris told the Sunday Stabroek during a recent visit to the area.
He said that now they are seeing the effects of the “cock work that they did.”
Harris said because the canal is filling up, the flow of the water has severely slowed and this could mean disaster, especially in the light of the fact that the country is facing a dry spell.
He along with his three sons − Regan, Rouqueston and Richardo − are strongly advocating that the canal be re-dug as this is the only way the problem can be rectified.
“If you watch at it, is sand, and the sand is coming down into the canal and filling it up because sand does move. They have to come and re-dig the canal but they must do the paaling with mud and not with the same silt that they dig from the canal, because it would slide down again since the foundation is not firm,” Harris explained.
He also pointed out that the paaling is made
