Montego Bay — The transport ministry says that it has put measures in place to ensure that the $658-million South Gully Drainage Improvement project does not overflow its banks with exceptionally heavy rainfall like the kind seen last December.

But they have also stressed the need for proper solid waste management to ensure that garbage does not clog the drains that take water into the gully.

“The important thing to do now is for the relevant agencies of government to deal effectively with the disposal of waste — solid and otherwise — and to maintain the drains leading into the water channel from settlements above the gully,” said transport minister Bobby Pickersgill.

He was speaking at a recent contract signing in Montego Bay, and used the opportunity to urge area residents to be careful how and where they dispose of their garbage.

And while he also stressed the need for proper garbage disposal methods, the head of the National Works Agency, Ivan Anderson, said some adjustments had been made to the structure.

“We have made some adjustments to the grating and we have made some adjustments to the silt traps, which will allow them to overflow into the channel and hopefully not overflow into the roads,” he said. “So if we have a flood event of similar magnitude we shouldn’t have any flooding of the roads like we had the last time.”

He added that mechanised equipment used to clean silt buildup from the sections that are inaccessible to humans were available but there had been no need to use them yet.

The South Gully project was put in place to alleviate the long-standing problem of flooding along the Creek Street area of Montego Bay. The project was plagued by delays that resulted from on-site fights, industrial action, and there was some problem with extortionists trying to squeeze money out of the contractors.

When it flooded its banks last December, some detractors charged that the project had failed to work. But in his recent address, the transport minister rejected these claims.

“The South Gully is sound, there are no engineering defects,” he said. “But with the magnitude of debris, solid waste and other refuse that came down during the heavy night rains, you tell me how it could not have been blocked. Bear in mind also, that it was cleared two weeks before the torrential rains, which the Met Office indicated was a one in a 30-year rainfall.”

The paved area created by the concrete surface that covers the gully will be used for commercial parking.