Pavi­t­ra Ramharack

On Sun­day, I sat in the com­fort of my home, sipped my cof­fee and lis­tened to the rain pound against my roof. It was a true in­di­ca­tion that these May rains are signs that the rainy sea­son is al­most up­on us.

Un­like many cit­i­zens, the com­mu­ni­ty where I live isn’t prone to flood­ing. So, while I could lis­ten to the rain­fall with­out the fear of ris­ing flood­wa­ters which would cause dam­age to my home or prop­er­ty, there were many cit­i­zens mon­i­tor­ing the rivers and drains around their homes and tak­ing nec­es­sary pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures.

Last Tues­day, the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment launched their Flood Mit­i­ga­tion and Shel­ter Ex­er­cise Plan. It ap­pears there is a re­al ef­fort this year to be more proac­tive with our flood­ing con­cerns. The min­istry has out­lined plans for com­mu­ni­ty out­reach and meet­ings to sen­si­tise res­i­dents of avail­able shel­ters and share nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion to as­sist those who may be­come af­fect­ed by flood­ing.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, each year dur­ing the rainy sea­son we em­ploy short-term meth­ods to get us through an­oth­er sea­son. We fail to ap­pre­ci­ate the need for long-term ef­forts to elim­i­nate flood­ing in cer­tain ar­eas, or even lim­it the amount of flood­ing we ex­pe­ri­ence. For sev­er­al years, I have at­tempt­ed to draw at­ten­tion to de­vel­op­ment works, some be­ing ap­proved and some un­ap­proved, car­ried out in a man­ner which in­creas­es flood­ing risks.

Whether it is large-scale de­vel­op­ment or in­di­vid­ual land de­vel­op­ment, per­sons who are car­ry­ing out the work feel the need to utilise every square inch of land.

Our need to oc­cu­py has re­sult­ed in drain re­serves be­ing ig­nored, back­fill­ing in a man­ner where drains are filled in to make room for dri­ve­ways or yard space. Lit­tle or no re­gard is giv­en for im­ped­ing the wa­ter flow in­to our wa­ter­cours­es.

The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act makes these ac­tions un­law­ful and out­lines the fines or charges for per­sons found li­able for such ac­tions. Yet, it must be ques­tioned whether per­sons are fined or made an­swer­able for their ac­tions.

De­spite the an­nu­al ex­pec­ta­tion or knowl­edge that there will be some lev­el of flood­ing, the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions do not at­tempt to en­force the law and en­sure de­vel­op­ers seek the nec­es­sary ap­provals for de­vel­op­ment and ad­here to the reg­u­la­tions re­quir­ing prop­er drainage.

Due to the lack of en­force­ment, some de­vel­op­ers have ad­vanced from sim­ply ig­nor­ing drainage and drain re­serves and are now at­tempt­ing to nar­row or re-route larg­er wa­ter­cours­es or small rivers, again with no le­gal reper­cus­sions.

I have had sev­er­al ex­pe­ri­ences with clients from south Trinidad who have been ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed by busi­ness­men and de­vel­op­ers who have rerout­ed es­tab­lished wa­ter­cours­es, de­stroyed ex­ist­ing wa­ter­cours­es and nar­rowed wa­ter­ways which have re­sult­ed in flood­ing.

While sev­er­al com­plaints have been made to their rel­e­vant lo­cal au­thor­i­ties, lit­tle or no in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed and there were no reper­cus­sions to the of­fend­ers.

The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions and Town and Coun­try Plan­ning Di­vi­sion do have a clear du­ty to en­force as­pects of the law, in par­tic­u­lar where drainage and con­struc­tion are con­cerned with­in their mu­nic­i­pal­i­ty and/or dis­trict.

Aside from the abil­i­ty to de­liv­er no­tices for fail­ure to com­ply, fines can be levied and/or de­mo­li­tion or al­ter­ations can be or­dered. If we be­gin to en­force the leg­is­la­tion al­ready at our dis­pos­al, we will be able to hold de­vel­op­ers and home­own­ers ac­count­able for their breach­es which re­sult in the wors­en­ing of the flood­ing sit­u­a­tion.

When the floods fi­nal­ly sub­side, home­own­ers and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty are usu­al­ly faced with a mas­sive clean-up cam­paign. The flood­wa­ter re­turns to us, all of the plas­tic bot­tles, con­tain­ers and oth­er trash that we have dumped in­to our wa­ter­cours­es and road­sides dur­ing the dry sea­sons. It’s al­most as if the float­ing trash, left dis­card­ed in our homes by the floods, is na­ture’s way of say­ing here is one of the rea­sons the wa­ter rush­es in­to your homes.

While I can sug­gest stricter penal­ties for those caught lit­ter­ing, I don’t be­lieve this, on its own, will re­solve the is­sue.

Since 1999 or be­fore, we have con­sid­ered the Bev­er­age Con­tain­er Bill. This bill has been dis­cussed, re­con­sid­ered, placed on the back burn­er, but it has nev­er be­come leg­is­la­tion.

South Africa, over the last few years, has shown a steady in­crease in their rates of re­cy­cling plas­tic con­tain­ers and bot­tles. They can now boast that their plas­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers are work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with their gov­ern­ment and waste man­age­ment com­pa­nies to im­prove their re­cy­cling abil­i­ties. It may be time the bill is re­con­sid­ered. It may have the twofold ef­fect of as­sist­ing with the flood­ing sit­u­a­tion and gen­er­at­ing em­ploy­ment for peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in re­cy­cling.

The rainy sea­son comes each year and with it comes flood­ing. While the flood­wa­ters do not find their way in­to all of our homes, the ef­fects of flood­ing are cer­tain­ly felt by every cit­i­zen.

There are those of us who will spend hours in traf­fic sim­ply be­cause some ar­eas are flood­ed. We may all have to pay high­er prices for cer­tain veg­eta­bles as the flood­ing has af­fect­ed the usu­al sup­ply.

Some may miss work, not be­cause their house is flood­ed, but be­cause roads lead­ing to their place of em­ploy­ment are in­ac­ces­si­ble.

Flood­ing af­fects us all. It is time we stop be­ing con­tent with short-term mea­sures and start con­sid­er­ing long-term means of re­duc­ing the lev­el and in­ci­dents of flood­ing.

Pavi­t­ra Ramharack is head of cham­bers at Pavi­t­ra Ramharack At­tor­neys at Law and can be reached at ramharack_pavi­t­ra@out­look.com