Flooding made worse by illegal dumping

Minister of Home Affairs Adriel Brathwaite has identified indiscriminate dumping as a major cause of the flooding which occurred in some St Peter communities yesterday.

He was at the time pointing to a lorry filled with large household items, which included mattresses, removed from the canal in the area of Round De Town.

Brathwaite’s comments came after touring the north of the island which was the hardest hit by the passing of Tropical Storm Harvey.

“The amount of garbage which we saw being removed could have contributed to the water rising to the levels the residents experienced,” he pointed out, calling on Barbadians to cease the undesirable practice.

“I cannot help but to beg Barbadians that rather than throw garbage in every canal you can find, think in terms of what could occur as a result of your indiscriminate dumping.”

When asked if harsher penalties for dumping are needed, he said, “It is not a question of harsher penalties. I think we really need to just capture a few people, charge them and convict them. A guy isn’t afraid of the penalties unless he sees a few people who have been caught. When was the last time you saw someone in one of our newspapers being charged for littering?”

The Home Affairs Minister, who was accompanied by a team consisting of Minister of Housing Denis kellman; Director of the Department of Emergency Management (DEM), Kerry Hinds; and Deputy-Director at DEM, Robert Yearwood also visited the community of Gills Terrace.

On assessment of the neighbouring areas, Brathwaite recalled that issues experienced as a result of the heavy rainfall dates back to 1984, and stressed “this means that we indeed need to find a solution so that this does not happen again.

“This is the second time since I have been minister responsible for Home Affairs that I have been down into this area. So we really need to find a solution.”

According to the DEM Director, “Usually the Drainage Division has a programme where we clear these various waterways and this is throughout the entire island…There are traditional flood areas and because of development there are new ones popping up because of our particular practices. So we endeavour as agencies to ensure that we have a programme in place where we clean the waterways on a regular basis.

“There have been some issues in terms of equipment resources, however we are treating to that – usually we have MOUs with the private sector to assist with the clearing when the state’s resources fall short. But, be assured that we do have a programme in place to service the various communities around Barbados,” Hinds said.

The Housing Minister shared with members of the media that having spoken to the Director of the Rural Development Commission (RDC), that Department will be conducting an assessment of the affected areas.

“We will have to see what we can do under the catastrophe fund, so that we could see how we could solve the problems as it relates to the displacements,” Kellman added. (TL)