Sun­day’s tor­ren­tial rains and sub­se­quent flood­ing met an ad­min­is­tra­tion al­ready brac­ing for the rainy sea­son. Just days ear­li­er, Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen launched a na­tion­wide flood mit­i­ga­tion cam­paign.

Ameen, the MP for St Au­gus­tine and a for­mer Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair, un­der­stands both the long-stand­ing flood­ing is­sues in her con­stituen­cy and the lim­it­ed ca­pac­i­ty of re­gion­al bod­ies to ad­dress them. To­geth­er with Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Jear­lean John, she co­or­di­nat­ed emer­gency re­spons­es that de­ployed equip­ment and per­son­nel to clear drains and wa­ter­cours­es. It was a com­mend­able sign of a gov­ern­ment in ac­tion.

Ameen has al­ready laid out a flood re­sponse plan that in­cludes dredg­ing rivers, clear­ing wa­ter­ways, re­in­forc­ing river­banks, restor­ing flood­gates and con­struct­ing re­ten­tion ponds.

Re­pur­pos­ing the old rice lands be­hind the NUGFW hous­ing de­vel­op­ment as de­ten­tion ponds could bring re­lief to res­i­dents of flood-prone ar­eas like Val­sayn, Bam­boo Set­tle­ments, Curepe, St Au­gus­tine and fur­ther east. These ponds could even be de­signed for dual use—as recre­ation­al spaces filled with fresh­wa­ter fish, of­fer­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for fish­ing and kayak­ing in the dry sea­son.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture Ravi Rati­ram toured the agri­cul­tur­al heart­land of Aranguez and crit­i­cised the “piece­meal clean­ing” of drainage sys­tems un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion. He promised to re­view the com­pen­sa­tion process and pack­ages for farm­ers who suf­fered loss­es due to flood­ing.

Di­rec­tor of Drainage Kather­ine Bad­loo-Do­er­ga voiced frus­tra­tion at the range of de­bris clog­ging the na­tion’s wa­ter­ways—from car parts, ap­pli­ances, house­hold garbage, and con­struc­tion waste. These block­ages not on­ly wors­en flood­ing but re­veal deep­er is­sues of pub­lic in­dis­ci­pline.

The Gov­ern­ment should con­sid­er im­ple­ment­ing a quar­ter­ly na­tion­al bulk waste col­lec­tion ini­tia­tive, al­low­ing res­i­dents to dis­pose of large items re­spon­si­bly. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a cen­tralised so­cial me­dia plat­form can in­form the pub­lic about des­ig­nat­ed drop-off points for con­struc­tion de­bris, po­ten­tial­ly used to fill state lands in need of recla­ma­tion. SWM­COL could sup­port this ef­fort by ro­tat­ing col­lec­tion bins through dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties on a sched­uled ba­sis.

In Ca­roni East, MP Dr Rishad Seecher­an in­ter­vened to pre­vent flood­ing in Mon­plaisir and Hinkin Road by rec­ti­fy­ing a block­age in the Cunu­pia Riv­er caused by a con­trac­tor. This in­ci­dent high­lights the need for bet­ter over­sight and ac­count­abil­i­ty. Puni­tive ac­tion must fol­low when neg­li­gent par­ties con­tribute to pub­lic haz­ards.

The is­sue of ir­re­spon­si­ble con­struc­tion and poor drainage plan­ning is not new. As far back as De­cem­ber 2008, then-min­is­ter of Works Colm Im­bert blamed floods in Diego Mar­tin on “un­scrupu­lous de­vel­op­ers,” promis­ing leg­is­la­tion to hold them ac­count­able. He cit­ed con­struc­tion silt and de­bris as pri­ma­ry cul­prits and pledged $30 mil­lion for riv­er up­grades. Im­bert vowed to “per­son­al­ly en­sure new laws would be in­tro­duced by 2009” to fine and charge er­rant de­vel­op­ers and se­cure com­pen­sa­tion for af­fect­ed home­own­ers.

Af­ter the dev­as­tat­ing floods of 2010, then-min­is­ter Jack Warn­er pledged the con­struc­tion of re­ten­tion ponds to col­lect and pump ex­cess wa­ter out to sea. For­mer Port-of-Spain may­or Louis Lee Sing not­ed that one such pond and pump­ing sys­tem helped re­duce flood­ing along South Quay—but on­ly tem­porar­i­ly. He lament­ed that many of the city’s drains were too old and in dire need of re­place­ment.

That same year, Afra Ray­mond, of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC), spear­head­ed the for­ma­tion of the Stormwa­ter Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, which pri­ori­tised drainage projects by ur­gency and cost. This ini­tia­tive should be re­vis­it­ed, as it of­fers a frame­work for da­ta-dri­ven de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

How­ev­er, even the best-laid plans are un­der­mined by pub­lic be­hav­iour. In 2022, then-min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan re­vealed that a mas­sive flood­gate—four square feet in size and weigh­ing near­ly a met­ric tonne—was stolen from the East Dry Riv­er. The con­tin­ued dump­ing of garbage in wa­ter­ways fur­ther crip­ples flood man­age­ment. Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud crit­i­cised the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion for be­ing “im­per­vi­ous” to ad­vice and ex­pressed hope that the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment would be more re­cep­tive.

Our cap­i­tal Port-of-Spain can­not con­tin­ue to be paral­ysed by every bout of rain­fall. In our cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty loss due to flood­ing is a se­ri­ous con­cern. For small busi­ness­es, even a sin­gle day’s clo­sure can be crip­pling. Just an hour of heavy rain brings the city to a halt. One idea worth ex­plor­ing is the cre­ation of a re­ten­tion pond in the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah—an ur­ban so­lu­tion that could ease wa­ter build-up while pre­serv­ing green space.

We are on­ly at the start of the rainy sea­son and as soil sat­u­ra­tion in­creas­es, the risk of runoff-in­duced flood­ing grows. While flood­ing can nev­er be com­plete­ly elim­i­nat­ed, the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion has the op­por­tu­ni­ty to prove it is se­ri­ous about sus­tained, long-term so­lu­tions.

The mo­men­tum must not be lost. What we have seen so far is promis­ing. But on­ly con­sis­tent ef­fort, ac­count­abil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty co­op­er­a­tion can lead to re­al change.