South res­i­dents are wor­ried that T&T's ecosys­tem may take a blow from Gov­ern­ment's $7.2 bil­lion high­way-a project that is ex­pect­ed to boost eco­nom­ic growth, es­ca­late land val­ues in south Trinidad and pro­vide em­ploy­ment to more than 27,000 peo­ple over the next four years. How­ev­er, some res­i­dents be­lieve that dam­age to the ecosys­tem can be mit­i­gat­ed if Gov­ern­ment con­structs a cause­way, or el­e­vat­ed road over the Godineau swamp in­stead of de­stroy­ing acres of prime man­groves grow­ing close to the Gulf of Paria. The cause­way will al­so as­suage the con­tin­u­al pound­ing ero­sion on the South Trunk Road close to Mos­qui­to Creek, whilst pro­vid­ing scenic ther­a­py for weary trav­ellers.

The high­way project has al­ready start­ed and moves are afoot to re­lo­cate be­tween 350 to 400 res­i­dents, squat­ters, farm­ers and pri­vate land own­ers. Phase One of the project be­gins from the Gol­con­da Con­nec­tor Road, con­nects to Debe and Dum­fries Road, through Paria Suites to the Godineau Riv­er-which drains thou­sands of acres of land from as far as Moru­ga to the east-to Siparia in the west. Phase Two of the high­way, sched­uled for Jan­u­ary next year, will be­gin from the Godineau Riv­er to Mon De­sir In­ter­change. The Pe­nal In­ter­change, Siparia In­ter­change, Fyz­abad In­ter­change and con­nec­tor roads are al­so sched­uled to be built dur­ing this phase, along with 18 cross roads and eight bridges.Phase Three, sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 2013, will start from the Mon De­sir In­ter­change to the Dun­lop round­about in Point Fortin, as well as Debe to the Mon De­sir In­ter­change.

The high­way is ex­pect­ed to pass through man­groves, lo­cat­ed along the coast­line at the Godineau swamp which is the breed­ing ground for 29 species of fish and nu­mer­ous species of crus­tacean crabs, oys­ters, mam­mals, ro­dents, rep­tiles, am­phib­ians and birds. It will al­so af­fect wet­lands as well as re­li­gious sites in­clud­ing the pop­u­lar Lord Shi­va mandir, lo­cat­ed on the banks of the Oropouche Riv­er. Pres­i­dent of the Gol­con­da to Debe High­way Ac­tion Com­mit­tee Ed­ward Mood­ie, who com­piled a re­port on the swamp, said Gov­ern­ment should as­pire to make the high­way as scenic as pos­si­ble, whilst pre­serv­ing the eco-sys­tem. Say­ing that he was sat­is­fied with con­tin­u­ous con­sul­ta­tions with Gov­ern­ment, Mood­ie said Gov­ern­ment should weigh the ben­e­fits of con­struct­ing a cause­way at the creek, in­stead of go­ing through the man­groves. He ex­plained that the Oropouche swamp is full of di­ver­si­ty, but is the least pro­tect­ed of the three ma­jor swamps in T&T.

"The man­grove acts as a buffer be­tween the sea and the land and is a feed­ing ground for shrimp and oth­er com­mer­cial sea or­gan­isms that feed on the nu­tri­ents de­posit­ed at the mouth of the riv­er," Mood­ie said. The for­mer school teacher said Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er had agreed with most of their re­quests with re­gards to re­lo­ca­tion and com­pen­sa­tion. Just last week, Warn­er ap­proved al­lo­ca­tion of 200 acres of land to re­lo­cate en­tire com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by the high­way. Mood­ie not­ed that Gov­ern­ment had al­ready pro­filed the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies and 90 per cent of the peo­ple were ready to be re­lo­cat­ed. "We are wait­ing on them to serve Sec­tion Three no­tices and we want to know how soon we can sub­mit claims for prop­er­ties," Mood­ie said.

Recog­nis­ing the ben­e­fits of the high­way, Mood­ie said: "We want to fa­cil­i­tate the process but we want a de­cent rental al­lowance be­cause it may take about nine months for the land at Her­mitage to be pre­pared." How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment must try as far as pos­si­ble to mit­i­gate against en­vi­ron­men­tal haz­ards dur­ing and af­ter the con­struc­tion phase. How­ev­er, sev­er­al res­i­dents of Debe and Pe­nal said the project may cre­ate ex­ten­sive flood­ing with­in the Oropouche basin as rivers may be clogged dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase. Ku­mar Sam­lal, 62, of Gopie Trace said since the high­way pro­pos­al was first made, he has been de­pressed. "My heart hurt­ing me be­cause I live here all my life. I rather dead than go any­where. When I move, I don't know where I go­ing to. We have so much crim­i­nals. Noth­ing could com­pen­sate me for this," Sam­lal said with tears in his eyes.

He added that ten rivers will be af­fect­ed, along with wildlife. "The tun­nels they built for the rivers will not be wide enough. They do not know how much wa­ter flows through the Oropouche basin. I do not be­lieve that this will be good for the peo­ple here," Sam­lal con­tend­ed. He not­ed that Gov­ern­ment must show re­spect for the wet­lands. Mean­while, on the banks of the Oropouche Riv­er, de­vout Hin­dus from the Lord Shi­va Mandir pre­dict­ed dev­as­ta­tion if the Gov­ern­ment pro­ceed­ed to de­stroy the mandir. Pun­dit Dhar­men­dra Per­sad Shar­ma, who had just com­plet­ed poo­ja on the riv­er bank, said the trees sur­round­ing the mandir were in­fused with "shak­tis" (a di­vine force man­i­fest­ing to de­stroy de­mon­ic in­flu­ences). "We are dig­ging our own grave. I think they should pass the high­way some­where else."

How­ev­er, most of the peo­ple who were in­ter­viewed said the high­way will be ben­e­fi­cial to the peo­ple of south Trinidad. Squat­ter Leslie Stanis­claus of Fyz­abad said that the project was long in com­ing. "I will be af­fect­ed by this but I am in sup­port of it. All we can ask is that Gov­ern­ment re­lo­cates us. We don't mind pay­ing for an HDC house. Some of us would like to have re­lo­ca­tion close to Fyz­abad," Stanis­claus said. Farmer De­vanand Soogrim who cul­ti­vates a sev­en-acre par­cel of land said he al­so want­ed ad­e­quate com­pen­sa­tion. He said he had three prop­er­ties which were be­ing rent­ed and the pas­sage of the high­way will af­fect his liveli­hood. Ra­mad­har Mad­ho of Ra­hamut Trace said the high­way will bring im­mense ben­e­fits to the peo­ple of La Brea, Point Fortin and en­vi­rons.

"Right now our econ­o­my is bad but I am hap­py that we are see­ing some progress as long as Gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­tates all the squat­ters, res­i­dents and farm­ers," Mad­ho said. Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Hous­ing, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, in a brief in­ter­view, said the high­way will stim­u­late in­vest­ment in the com­mu­ni­ties through which it pass­es. How­ev­er, he said that the cause­way will cost ad­di­tion­al mon­ey but it was some­thing that the Min­istry of Works and the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO) could as­sess be­fore mak­ing a fi­nal de­ci­sion. A se­nior of­fi­cial of WASA con­firmed that a 20-inch wa­ter line as well as a main trans­mis­sion line will have to be re­aligned to fa­cil­i­tate the high­way project. The of­fi­cial added that the cost of the re­align­ment will be paid by the Min­istry of Works.

27,000 jobs com­ing

Mean­while, Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er said it would be fi­nan­cial­ly dif­fi­cult to build a cause­way . "A cause­way is al­most dou­ble the cost of a high­way and it will not solve of the prob­lems with the man­groves be­cause in any case you will have to dam­age the man­grove as such. We have some dam­age. We have pro­fes­sion­als and ex­perts who are de­cid­ing the best way to do it and in the end the man­grove will not be dam­aged. He al­so said that nine tem­ples and re­li­gious sites will be re­built, along with eight in­ter­changes at Gol­con­da, Debe, Pe­nal, Sevil­la, Fyz­abad, Mon De­sir, St Mary's and La Brea. Warn­er al­so said that there will be 12 cross­roads that tra­verse on to the High­way.