Development Economist and activist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh says there is no doubt in his mind that flooding in south Trinidad will worsen.
Following massive flooding in areas of south and east Trinidad last week and questions raised on digital media regarding the effect of construction projects in those areas, the Guardian met up with Dr Kublalsingh, who spent years of his life warning about the dire consequences of constructing the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension project without a hydrology report.
Hydrology is the science that encompasses the occurrence, distribution, movement and properties of the waters of the earth and their relationship with the environment within each phase of the hydrologic cycle. It is all about water.
Kublalsingh, who along with the Highway Re-route Movement (HRM) group is still part of a court matter regarding a specific section of the highway, said it was obvious that this level of flooding would have happened.
He met recently with Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan and got from him a commitment to facilitate consultation with the HRM in moving forward on the Debe to Mon Desir section of the highway.
"There is no doubt in my mind that it will get worse, I wouldn't have gone on a hunger strike or taken those extreme measures unless I understood the magnitude. The people on the ground were telling me about it.
"I knew for a fact it would get to this point and it is worse because the people have been left stranded because the government agencies and local government are not working properly. They don't have the technology or capacity to deal with this, that is very clear. So the community is left on its own and they have to help each other," Kublalsingh said.
Kublalsingh's protests for more than five years focused on lobbying the then People's Partnership government to re-route the highway extension to Point Fortin, avoiding the route from Debe to Mon Desir.
'They did not do a hydrology report, flooding will get worst'
That highway route passes through the Oropouche Lagoon, also called the South Oropouche Basin.
This basin extends from the Gulf of Paria for nine miles and stretches in all directions but it extends more towards the east, from the Gulf of Paria to Barrackpore, going all the way to Mohase Road, Rochard Road, Moruga, and coming back to the east going to Barrackpore Number Two.
Rivers come through Fyzabad, Siparia and Penal, areas which have rivers that flow and come towards the heart of the Oropouche Lagoon and find its way to the sea.
He started the interview last week by pointing out that part of increased flooding had to do with changing weather patterns but said another serious part of it was the contentious highway.
"It is different, extreme weather and a lot of the glacier ice in the Andes have melted. There is a lot of water in the system and it has to go somewhere so it is causing extreme flooding.
"From now you will find more flooding, more landslides, more inundation of coastal areas and that is something we will have to brace for, scientifically."
His concern though is the highway extension.
"They were relying on the contractors to do a hydraulics without the benefit of a hydrology report so basically they were putting the cart before the horse."
He said while the previous government had facilitated the Armstrong report they had not done a hydrology report. "We asked the Government to discontinue work until that is done but they went ahead despite that. To me, it meant a small group of technocrats, key ministers they all acted negligently and mislead the people.
"That is what has been happening to the people of Barrackpore, Woodland, Penal, Debe, and Siparia."
He said it was now evident that the flow of water in the basin had altered.
"When the tide is high the water has nowhere to go. The tide is pushing up the rivers, the water has nowhere to go so it spreads laterally bursting its banks. If they had looked at the science, things could have been done to avoid some of this.
"I'm not saying not to build, but you have to mitigate it by proper hydraulics. We have been sacrificed to the ambitions of a few politicians and a few contractors and the people were left to suffer."
Our aim is to take precautions to mitigate flooding—Sinanan
In an interview last week, Works Minister Rohan Sinanan said he would not doubt Kublalsingh's observation that work on the Solomon Hochoy Highway Extension could have been a contributing factor to excessive flooding.
Noting that if nothing was done, the flooding could worsen in time, Sinanan said it was a "serious change in weather patterns" and a lot of infrastructural work that would have gone on by developers, whether residential or otherwise, which would have resulted in the worsened floods.
He said the ministry was looking at all factors with an aim to take precautions to mitigate flooding.
The review of studies, which is being conducted by Nidco and consultant engineers, would look at whether the highway is passing through any water channels and look at ways to decrease or remove adverse effects.
He also said in the last few years at Mosquito Creek, there was a breach and a lot of water came in from the mangrove.
"You had a significant amount of water coming in from the mangrove and at high tide. The pumps in the area were not able to pump that volume of water."
He said the reason the water was able to decrease at that location was that Nidco repaired the breach and brought in more pumps to get the water out.
"Yes there is a problem on the creek, and once that section of the highway is completed we believe there will be fewer problems."