Hope River fears

Residents of Kintyre and Tavern in St Andrew say they are “running out of ground” after Hurricane Melissa’s fierce rains chewed deeper into the Hope River’s banks, exposing foundations, toppling fences, and renewing longstanding fears that their homes and possessions could be lost. They are pleading for river training to protect their properties and prevent having to start their lives over elsewhere.

Their plights are evidenced by the concrete rubble that littered the sides of the river. For residents of Kintyre and ‘Back-o-Wall’ in Tavern, these were not mere cement and steel. They were fallen homes, million-dollar investments by people who often have no idea from where their next meal would come. They represented ambition, vision, and accomplishment.

In these communities, several houses perch dangerously on the eroding banks. Many have been abandoned. Others, like the small dwelling of 68-year-old Vernal Crosdale, are still occupied because their owners have nowhere else to go.

“I want to move. This is not safe,” Crosdale said, pointing to the cliff metres behind his home. “I want to move somewhere peaceful, and live some life before I die. ...I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

During storms, residents in Back-o-Wall – a section behind the Tavern Community Centre – are forced to evacuate to that same centre, though locals warn it too is at risk of collapsing into the river. Residents insist that while minor works have been attempted over the years, nothing substantial has ever been done.

“It has just been a cycle and you have to put a remedy to it,” argued block builder Mark Jackson, whose home and business sit on the river’s edge. “Every year or every five to 10 years we have a big hurricane and a set of people are gone. Then, another time another set after that. When that set is gone it is the community centre next,” Jackson said.

For the long-time resident, the training of the river and the construction of groynes would go a far way in protecting the community from further erosion.

“It is not rocket science to know that this can be dealt with. Look at stones,” Jackson said, pointing to boulders he believes could be repositioned along the coast to keep the water in its channel. He gestured to the narrow ledges where backyards once stretched wide, lush with fruit trees – now eaten away by years of erosion.

At least 20 deaths

In 2008, during the passage of Tropical Storm Gustav, two houses in the Kintyre area were washed away by the river due to landslides. At least 20 people reportedly died during Gustav in 2008 – 10 confirmed from Hope River-related incidents, including four persons from Kintyre who were swept away along with their homes. Over a dozen houses were destroyed.

That disaster prompted the then Bruce Golding-led government to relocate 179 residents to West Albion, St Thomas. The Government provided the land; Food For The Poor built the homes; residents were asked to contribute $3,000 monthly towards development.

Seventeen years after the passage of Gustav, residents like Mark Pinnock are not keen on being uprooted from their community due to the potential risk posed by the Hope River.

Pinnock, who earns his living as a barber in the community, says relocation would rip him from his only source of income.

“I can’t relocate anywhere if they even come with that,” he said. “How am I going to leave my home, my family, and most of all, my barbering to go to West Albion? “First of all, I don’t know anybody out there, and that would be like I’m starting all over again. Plus, you have to leave here, where you’ve already built up and go somewhere else to pay money – that cannot work.”

Pinnock said. He added: “That is why we need the Government to come in and build an embankment, train the river so we can stay where we are.”

The communities along the Hope River straddle the constituencies of St Andrew East Rural, represented by Juliet Holness; and St Andrew Eastern, where Fayval Williams is the member of parliament. Attempts to contact Williams were unsuccessful. However, her opponent in the recently concluded general election, Patricia Duncan Sutherland, said she knows of no meaningful river training programme in recent years.

Major part of the problem

“The major part of the problem is that you don’t have a continued programme and there is no solution going forward. This same challenge is occurring in the August Town area, behind a place called African Gardens, coming down from Goldsmith Villa... I don’t think they have put it (river training) as a priority,” she added.

Meanwhile, Manager of Communication and Customer Services at the National Works Agency, Stephen Shaw, has confirmed that no river-training works are on the table for the Hope River, despite the escalating erosion threat faced by communities such as Kintyre and Tavern. Shaw told The Sunday Gleaner that while engineers have repeatedly assessed the river, the terrain presents complex and costly challenges.

“We had looked at Hope River on several occasions but that Kintyre area is special because there is a lot of earth movement in that space, coupled with erosion. So I don’t know if anything is on the agenda as we speak,” he said.

According to Shaw, the agency’s river-training budget is stretched thin across the island, leaving little room for major interventions unless special funding is provided.

“The river-training budget that we get annually is very small for the numbers of river that we have, so we would have to get some special allocation to treat with an area like the Hope River,” he said.

The scale of the works required would be enormous, he cautioned, describing the project as a “massive undertaking” likely to carry a multimillion-dollar price tag.

Shaw said the persistent instability of the riverbank makes long-term engineering solutions less viable than moving residents out of harm’s way. Given the instability, he said “the better option is to have residents relocated”.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com