Last week, Stabroek News contacted Mr Malcolm Alli, who was the senior engineer in the Hydraulics Division when the East Coast Conservancy Dam was breached in 1968. Together with other engineers, he had conducted soil tests, among other things, in order to establish what the options were, and he had also been one of those involved in sealing the breach. His replies to our questions, which we published in our Wednesday edition, were revealing.

It transpires that the idea of raising the height of the dam - the very thing which it seems B K International was contracted to do this time around - was not entertained by the engineers in 1968 on account of the nature of the structure's foundation. That foundation is weak because the sub-soil is pegasse, and as a consequence before the dam can be raised, the width of its base would have to be increased. Any thought of embarking on the latter exercise was abandoned at the time because it entailed the risk of further breaches.

The other option which Mr Alli told us had been considered thirty odd years ago, was relocating the dam entirely. That plan too was discarded on account of the prohibitive cost involved.

He also informed us that the dam had been poorly constructed in the first instance since it varied in width and height, something which this newspaper's own reporter had observed simply by looking down its length. More particularly, Mr Alli made reference to the vegetation on the structure's slopes, which had been intended to prevent soil erosion during rainfall. He was of the view that were this to be removed, it would subject the dam "to seepage of water and subsequent failure."

The removal of vegetation - specifically bamboo groves - prior to the current breach, had been one of the allegations made against the contractor by the residents of Cane Grove, although in its first official response, which we published in our Tuesday edition, the company denied this. It claimed that the area of dam which had failed had no bamboo at all. B K International also said that the contract for the remedial work in the conservancy included the cutting of bamboo tops and the clearing of vegetation where necessary, "to carry on compaction of the dam." This received some confirmation from Mr Ravi Narine, the Chairman of the Drainage and Irrigation Board (D&IB), who told reporters last week that vegetation had been cleared to facilitate the building up of the dam.

Whatever the degree of culpability or otherwise of the contractor, questions do arise as to whether adequate geotechnical research had been carried out prior to the drafting of the project, and whether sufficient information about the conservancy's history had been made available to the authorities.

In the area of sea and riverine defences this country built up a formidable data base from the nineteenth century onwards. So what happened to the records in relation to the conservancy, and in particular, where are the studies which were done as a consequence of the 1968 breach located? Even if this information was not easily accessible to the D&IB (which is quite possible considering officialdom's poor record where the preservation and retrieval of documents is concerned), was any attempt made before drawing up the specifications for the reinforcement work to contact engineers who had associations with the dam, but who are now retired or are employed elsewhere? The Drainage and Irrigation Board would surely have benefited from their experience. And was any approach made to Guysuco, which in a previous incarnation as Bookers Sugar Estates had had a relationship with the conservancy, and whose officials may have been able to offer some background?

According to Mr Alli, the underlying cause of the problem with the dam in 1968 appears to have been seepage, to which the Georgetown Water Commissioners did not respond quickly enough when it was reported to them. A high water level in the conservancy, he told us, was thought to have then precipitated the breach. If the commissioners were dilatory in the first instance, they at least could not be accused of lack of thoroughness in their investigations of the options thereafter. Can it be said that we were as thorough this time around before the project for raising the dam was crafted, and the contract drawn up?