NWA begins drain cleaning in anticipation of active hurricane season

By Nakinskie Robinson   

 

The National Works Agency (NWA) has commenced a three-phase drain cleaning programme, as it works to cushion the possible impact of what is anticipated to be an active hurricane season.

 

Some $1 million has been earmarked for the exercise for each of the 63 constituencies.

 

The first part of the three-phased undertaking commenced in mid May and is expected to be completed in mid June.

 

E.G. Hunter, Chief Executive Officer at the NWA, outlined the structure of the remaining phases. 

 

"The hurricane season peaks September-October, if you look at the graph. So again we will do another cycle towards the end-middle of August into the first couple of weeks of September. That will be our second cycle. And then the hurricane season ends the end of November, so whatever has accumulated in the drains between September and the end of November, we will clean in December. So there's a three-cycle process that we undertake for mitigation purposes," he explained at Wednesday's post Cabinet press briefing. 

 

Mr. Hunter said work will begin this week for the cleaning of the Sandy Gully in St. Andrew, which neighbours the Riverton City dump.   

 

"We went to tender to have public interest for someone to spend their money to take out the material and use the material, because there is some value as fill. Regrettably no one bit. We're trying that again, but in addition to that, we've recently signed off on about $6 million to undertake some cleaning ourselves," he said. 

 

This cleaning will take place in the vicinity of two bridges - one on Spanish Town Road and the other on Washington Boulevard. 

 

"We have a special interest in preserving the bridges because, to the extent that there is an accumulation at debris within the vicinity of the bridges whenever the gullies are in spate, it does pose an extraordinary challenge. But again, the total cost to clean the Sandy Gully in the manner that we'd like to be able to clean it is a tremendously high figure," he admitted. 

 

The Sandy Gully is frequently full of water during periods of heavy downpour due to an accumulation of piles of debris and trees.