Gov­ern­ment should move ahead with the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill in a bid to curb the amount of garbage thrown in­to wa­ter­cours­es.

This was the view of Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al ear­li­er to­day as she vis­it­ed parts of her con­stituen­cy hit by flood­ing. Ram­di­al said the bill had lapsed in the Sen­ate. But hav­ing seen the dev­as­ta­tion caused by the floods, some of it as a re­sult of the dump­ing of garbage in wa­ter­ways, she said it was now time to re­vis­it it.

“I want to make an ap­peal to the Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is to give us an up­date. Is it the in­ten­tion of this Gov­ern­ment to bring the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill to deal with pol­lu­tion of our wa­ter­ways, which will, in the long run, see an al­le­vi­a­tion of flood­ing,” Ram­di­al said.

She said in the short term, reg­u­lar main­te­nance of wa­ter­cours­es, in­clud­ing dredg­ing of ma­jor rivers, is need­ed. She said ad­di­tion­al re­ten­tion ponds are al­so need­ed in some ar­eas to pull and store ex­cess wa­ter in times of heavy rain­fall.

Ram­di­al said un­scrupu­lous land de­vel­op­ers al­so need to be dealt with by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, adding they of­ten sell lands with­out prop­er drainage and ap­provals.

Fol­low­ing the tour of her con­stituen­cy, Ram­di­al said parts of Joyce Road, Or­ange Field and the Con­nec­tor Road be­tween Ex­change and Wa­ter­loo had ex­pe­ri­enced flood­ing.

At the Con­nec­tor Road, wa­ter was al­most three feet high at some points, mak­ing it im­pos­si­ble for cars to pass. Po­lice and Fire Ser­vice Of­fi­cers vis­it­ed the scene. Po­lice said they had re­ceived nu­mer­ous calls from mem­bers of the pub­lic who want­ed to know how high the flood was along the Con­nec­tor Road since that road al­le­vi­ates most of the traf­fic con­ges­tion head­ing from Ch­agua­nas to Cou­va.

At Ca­paro, Paras Ra­moutar, the for­mer coun­cil­lor for the area, said for decades calls to dredge and ex­pand the Ca­paro Riv­er had fall­en on deaf ears. He said cou­pled with ne­glect and pol­lu­tion of the wa­ter­cours­es, flood­ing is now in­evitable in parts of Ca­paro and en­vi­rons.