Mayor complains of indiscriminate dumping of garbage in city drains as floodwaters begin to recede

With a number of communities flooded as a result of overnight heavy rainfall, Mayor Ubraj Narine pleaded with citizens to stop the dumping of garbage in the city’s drainage system.

The Mayor was joined by the junior Minister of Public Infrastructure, the Town Clerk and a number of City Councillors in a walk around the city this morning as parts of the nation’s capitol woke up to flood waters.

It was explained that all of the city’s pumps are working but the sluices had to remain close for a number of hours as the high tide was in effect. Once the tide went down, the sluices were reopened.

Mayor Narine complained that workers of the Council were forced to clear several blockages to the pump system as plastic bottles and other waste products made their way through the system.

He said as a number of communities were visited, it was discovered that persons were dumping “all kinds of things into the drainage system, from old cloth to old chairs”, Narine complained.

Narine said the City Council will continue to do its work but citizens must also recognise that they too have a role to play.

City Engineer Colvern Venture explained that the City of Georgetown has become more populated and is now larger and the original drainage system may not have catered for those changes and the amount of rainfall that was experienced overnight. Some areas reportedly experienced over three inches of rainfall.

“We will work along with the other agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture which has already given us assistance and so we are working with them to see how we will be able to alleviate this reoccurrence that is happening here”, the City Engineer said.

A check around Georgetown this afternoon revealed many of the floodwaters receding, but with the weatherman predicting more overnight rainfall, the floodwaters might return.