Hope Canal’s success, should inspire greater partnership, confidence in Guyana’s young professionals - Minister Ramsammy

Written by Gina Webmasters, Published in News, Georgetown, GINA, December 19, 2014, Source - GINA

Young Guyanese professionals

During a site visit to the project today, the Minister noted that the entire project has been under intense scrutiny and criticism, and by very experienced professionals. “We are thankful for their ideas, we are thankful for their input, but sometimes we all have to come together when we are doing important things, things that are needed, things that are new,” the Minister said.

“Guyana will not be able to stand as is,” he noted for, “if we are going to progress we will have to bring new things that many of the young engineers may not have had experience with, but so too have the old experienced professionals.”  

The Minister said that he is proud of what the young engineers and contractors have accomplished.  “Even though we have not operationalised the canal as yet, we see that we have completed a project that many people thought was not possible,” he said. “I hope now that people have seen what they thought was not possible indeed is possible that we will have a lot more partnership in seeing the realisation of the potential for this canal, and that  we will have greater confidence in the young cadre of professionals  that we have coming up in Guyana,” he added.

Minister of Agriculture Dr. Leslie Ramsammy inspects works on the eight-door high level sluice

Whilst the project benefitted from the input of people abroad, it was conceptualised, designed and constructed by Guyanese professionals, particularly young Guyanese and this is what Guyanese should take a moment to appreciate and to reflect on how far Guyana has progressed. He noted that 20 years ago such a project like this would not have been possible in Guyana. “Even if we conceptualised it then, we would have had to bring in international consultants, international engineers to design and even bring international contracting firms. This thing was built by a Guyanese contracting firm with Guyanese staff and was designed and put into place by Guyanese professionals,” he pointed out.

Accompanying Minister Ramsammy on the site visit was Chief Executive Officer (CEO,) of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA,) Lionel Wordsworth, who noted that the NDIA is currently concluding some remaining aspects of works on both the canal and the high level discharge sluice, for the December 31 deadline.

The view of the eight-door high level sluice from the sea

Eight gates

Wordsworth said that the super structure of the high-level sluice will be completed tomorrow. He noted that the eight gates are already in place and what would follow are the installation of the lifting mechanism, the cementing of the very top and the construction of a control room, all of which are expected to be tied up by year- end. All that will remain is some landscaping work that will be done in the new year.

Wordsworth said that at the head regulator, during the week, the engineers started opening and closing the gates, “Not allowing water to come through, but to make sure that it closes freely the way we want to before we make that final cut in the conservancy dam to make that connection to allow water to come into the channels,” he explained. The lifting mechanisms are being installed and, “as we are completing them, we start a process of operationalisation by opening and closing the gates.”

Excavator completing the tying of the embankment to the bridge and the high level discharge sluice

The engineers are also working on connecting the canal itself to the two other structures. “We would have had in place, whilst construction was going on, some accesses across the channel to allow movement of equipment, fuel and such, and we are now in the process of removing those and tying the  embankment to the bridge, and of course the high level discharge sluice,” Wordsworth explained.

He pointed out that this really is the last aspect of the embankment work because what this means is that engineers are making the entire embankment continuous from the head regulator to the high level discharge sluice.

Wordsworth explained too that the weigh levee limit of the project (the entire limit that covers the channel, the embankment etc) on the eastern side, is in alignment with an existing access road. This means that the embankment on the eastern side of the channel will be built on this existing road.

A view of the Hope Canal Bridge, completed in February 2014

Wordsworth said that the NDIA is working with the Ministry of Housing, and that there is already a plan to reroute this access area, whereby an alternative internal road would be constructed. He said that this will be done very shortly, and the section of the embankment (which is about 200 meters) that falls within the precincts of the existing road will be completed.

All the super structure of the Hope Canal project is set to be completed by December 31. The project itself will become operationalised in early 2015.

The $3.6B, four-component project comprises a channel, a high-level sluice outfall structure, a conservancy head regulator and a public bridge. The latter was completed and commissioned in February of this year.

On completion, the channel will join the conservancy at a point on its north-eastern embankment, cutting across 10.3km of the coast to spill directly into the Atlantic Ocean.  The excess water from the conservancy will drain into the canal via the three-door sluice at that end, and run along the excavated channel and spilling into the Atlantic via the eight-door high-discharge sluice structure.

Source - http://www.gina.gov.gy/home/in...ls-minister-ramsammy