Councillor predicts major flooding from highway project
MAY PEN, Clarendon — Concerns about the construction of the May Pen to Williamsfield leg of the East-west Highway have got louder with the onset of the rainy season.
Councillor Uphel Purcell (York Town Division, People’s National Party) has once again sounded an ominous warning that several communities will be severely affected by flooding if the project continues in its current form.
“I have been warning them that if they do an underpass on that section of the highway it is going to be flooded and we cannot avoid it. NROCC (National Road Operating and Constructing Company Limited) and China Harbour have seen some of the issues but they don’t want to say it because we have been saying for many years that this would have happened and they don’t want to accept that. They want to say they are engineers and they have done their studies and when the highway is completed we’re not going to have these issues. But I have warned them and I have continued to reiterate that we will be having the issue when we have heavy rains in the future; it will not stop,” he predicted.
At Thursday’s sitting of the Clarendon Municipal Corporation’s monthly meeting, Purcell used the opportunity to call on those responsible to heed his warning that communities in his division and those adjoining it will experience flooding beyond anything ever seen.
“I will say again, the highway runs east to west and the water runs north to south and if they do not have proper drainage to deal with the issues, the idea that putting a 300-foot buffer on either side of the Jacks Gully, Comfort Gully, and Flemings Gully will not work. All the drains that carry water away… must be looked at in a technical way and see how best they can flow the water to the Rio Minho which runs to the sea. If that doesn’t happen, even May Pen will be affected because it borders on some of these communities,” he said.
“There seem to be no proper provisions made to prevent flooding of several communities, such as Toll Gate, Osbourne Store, Decoy, and Duke Street through which the highway runs. I am saying that the problems that have transpired there in the two weeks since we have had the heavy rains are not looking good.
“There are going to be serious problems because they have shown me diagrams and I told them that it can’t work with the kind of water that passes through that area. They did not listen and now they are having a problem,” he said.
In response, meeting chairman and mayor of May Pen, Councillor Winston Maragh said he had been in discussion with NROCC and has invited representatives to the next infrastructure and development meeting. The meeting is planned for the fourth Tuesday of the month. Maragh said NROCC has accepted the invitation.