Observer editor-at-large, Garfield Myers climbs the Santa Cruz Mountains in St Elizabeth to get a bird’s eye view of flood-ravaged New River, where ominously rising waters have again forced residents to abandon their homes. He reports that the problem is worsening and solutions depend on who is talking.

SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth – What is not in dispute is that the flood problem in New River, the low-lying community just north of the fast-growing St Elizabeth town of Santa Cruz, is getting worse.

Four times this year, the most recent following the Wilma rains, people have had to flee their homes in the community because of ominously rising waters.

In the three years previously, they and many others were forced out of their homes at least twice each year.

A short drive into the lower reaches of the Santa Cruz Mountains for a birds’ eye view soon reveals the extent of the problem. Excess water from the huge 14,000-acre Upper Morass of the Black River threatens to spill over onto the Santa Cruz to Lacovia main road. Looking northwards, the water extends to the foot of the Nassau Mountains.

No wonder then that New River, one of the lowest points in the area, is in trouble. Currently, fourteen families have been displaced, three moving into a church on higher ground to the north of the community.

And the main link between Santa Cruz and the community, the Wanstead main road is blocked to vehicular traffic for a mile and a half – water rising past the waist in some places.

The alternative Brighton road is twice as long, also waterlogged in places and riddled with treacherous potholes and bumps.

Everywhere in St Elizabeth now, the swarms of mosquitoes that descend at dusk bear eloquent testimony to the huge body of water – swollen by rain and run-off from the hills – that is taking up more and more of the plains.

Locals, supported by others who claim intimate knowledge, have been saying for years that failure to “clean” the course of the Black River and its tributaries is a major reason for the increasingly frequent flooding. They insist that the Black River, the island’s longest river, is blocked in several places with trees and debris of all types, contributing to a back-up of water.

Additionally, most people contend that dams or “levees” equipped with pumps which were built across the Black River Morass in the 1970s not only aided the development of farming but helped to drain excess water away from communities.

Now, they say, neglect and bad policy choices, which since the 1980s led to the malfunctioning and finally the removal of all the pumps, have made the once useful dams a huge hindrance since they now help to prevent the free flow of water.

But Felton Brown, regional systems manager of the National Irrigation Commission (NIC), and who monitors the Black River on a “daily” basis, rejects most, if not all, of the above.

He is particularly upset by talk that the river is blocked because of non-cleaning.

“The river is not blocked,”, he vehemently insists. “We have a staff that travels the river on a daily basis and removes anything that could be a hindrance, including trees and other debris.”

Kenroy Samuels, the recently elected Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) caretaker for north east St Elizabeth is among those who claim that “the river has not been cleaned since (hurricane) Gilbert” in 1988.

But Brown who says he has been working on the Black River Morass since 1974 and “I don’t think there is anyone who knows more about these wetlands than I do”, believes the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Indeed, says Brown, he only recently took a 20-mile boat ride up the Black River with his boss the NIC chairman, all the way from the mouth of the river in the parish capital to Newton, which is well north of Lacovia. This, he says, is proof that the river’s main channel is clean and free of blockages. And according to Brown he could have gone much further north had time and fuel allowed.

Brown challenged the Sunday Observer and “anyone else” to travel the river with him to “see for yourself” – an invitation readily accepted for a journey to come.

New River locals, such as shopkeeper George Dunkley, 79, who told the Sunday Observer just over a month ago that if the authorities “clean the drains and the river, the flooding will stop”, and businessman David Scott, fall just short of scoffing at the claims by Brown.

“I would love to see that .” says Dunkley of Brown’s claim that he rode his boat all the way to Newton.

Equally skeptical, Scott argues that the dams downstream of New River represent a much greater problem. The dams once “worked to the advantage of the people” but with the removal of the pumps now “work to their disadvantage”.

He contends that “even one pump”, which he defines as “an engine with a hydraulic pump attached”, would be enough to speedily alleviate periodic flooding of the New River area.

Member of parliament for north east St Elizabeth, Roger Clarke, readily accepts that the dams, devoid of pumps, are now a contributory factor, exacerbated, he says, by reflows into the river upstream of the dam, from fish ponds owned by Aquaculture Jamaica Limited – a subsidiary of Jamaica Broilers which operates a major fish farm in the area.

“A major problem is that the water which is drawn from the river for the fish ponds re-enters the river above the dam,” Clarke explains. He argues that Aquaculture Jamaica could help the situation by seeking to channel the water further downstream from the dam.

But Robert Levy of Jamaica Broilers doesn’t think his company should be faulted since the water from the fish ponds simply re-enter the river from which it had come in the first place.

He, like Scott, argues that the removal of pumps used to regulate water levels in the Black River Morass was the fundamental problem.”

“It’s a disgrace,” he says of the run-down of the water control system which was the cornerstone of the Black River Upper Morass Development Company Ltd (Brumdec).

Levy recalled that under that project farming, especially rice, thrived on sections of the Black River Morass and that the levee system worked well.

Levy blames the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government of the 1980s for policy moves which, he contends, led to the collapse of Brumdec.

He also recalls that the growth of ganja as a huge cash crop in the area during that period, compromised the political will and led to the demise of the Brumdec project and, ultimately, the water control system.

Kingsley Clarke, a resident of the New River community since childhood and the public relations officer for the District Development Committee tells the Sunday Observer that – out of recognition that the problems and causes are not just one but “several” and the need for a “holistic” solution focusing on the “whole Black River” – citizens had come up with a number of recommendations in January this year.

The recommendations which were passed on to all the “relevant agencies” asked that:

. the Black River and all its tributaries be cleared and trees and logs removed

. all drains be rehabilitated

. old equipment beneath the old pumping stations be removed so as to allow the free flow of water through existing culverts;

. that water diverted for use at fish ponds be returned to the river below the dams, that larger culverts be built where smaller ones now exist and those blocked or removed should be replaced;

. the Wanstead to New River road be asphalted and lifted and the alternative Brighton to New River Road be asphalted; and

. a drain leading from Santa Cruz through the community to the Little River beyond be completed.

Since then, Kingsley Clarke says, citizens had also recommended the setting up of a pump (possibly portable) to move excess water from the “New River side to the Little River” to alleviate flooding.

Donna Sherman who has been forced out of her home “every time” there has been a flood since 2002 believes that the implementation of those recommendations will gradually return the area to a time she remembers as a child. When the streams in the area “run free” and the morass was confined, allowing residents plenty of dry land even after prolonged rainfall.

But for NIC’s Brown, most people are missing what he believes to be the essential point, which is that water levels fuelled by extraordinarily heavy rains have gone beyond the “carrying capacity of the Black River”.

Says he: “Everybody needs to understand that the morass is a sponge and it just can’t hold anymore. When you ride the river you realise that the water isn’t just backing up in the upper morass, it is backing up from the lower morass and spreading out. All of the wetlands have been reclaimed by water.”

myersg@jamaicaobserver.com