Recurring breaches in Guyana’s sea defences

Dear Editor,
It has been reported in the media that the high tides being experienced along Guyana’s coastland have again flooded and caused extensive damages to several villages and cultivated lands located at Fyrish, Mahaicony, Mahaica, Leguan and elsewhere.
These flood occurrences, particularly during the months of October and November, are being dealt with as emergency situations by the Sea Defence Board/Ministry of Public Infrastructure (SDB/MoPI) as they scramble to mobilise equipment and materials such as boulders to temporarily build earthen embankments with a rock armour to seal the breaches which have occurred. These last-minute efforts will not help much as the damages have already been done and the ravages of the sea will require formidable defences to contain them and the infrastructure is just not there.
The SDB/MoPI was committed to implementing scientific approaches to the planning and execution of interventions of the country’s sea and river defences with emphasis placed on sustaining functional and structurally adequate dykes to protect life and property particularly in critical coastal areas from the onslaught of the sea. Further, the Dutch had conducted a hydrographic study of Guyana’s coastland and concluded that erosion/accretion of its foreshore was occurring with a cyclic mode and moving westwards. Presently, erosion with breaches is taking place at several coastal locations including Fyrish and Mahaicony.
The SDB/MoPI has no planned programme to raise and strengthen the copings of existing seawalls and earthen embankments to counteract the hydraulic forces being impacted on them. Therefore, weak areas are being seriously eroded and breached, causing flooding and extensive damages to properties.
Guyana has limited resources to spend on its infrastructures. Unfortunately, much of it is wasted on questionable projects such as elevators on road overpasses and the planting of mangroves on the foreshore to arrest erosion. Ms Annette Arjoone, one of the principal proponents of this idea should visit Mahaicony and get a firsthand look at what has happened to the mangroves there and its ineffectiveness in preventing the breach which has caused extensive flooding to large areas of valuable farmlands.
It is time that the Govt through its SDB/MoPI starts constructing adequately designed sea and river defences in critical areas to protect the lives and properties of the many poor people living along the coastland from rising sea levels which is generating larger destructive forces on the sea defences.

Yours truly,
Charles Sohan