Takutu Bridge
Guyana moving ahead to set up facilities
by Andrew Richards
Stabroek News
May 12, 2002
Guyana is moving ahead with plans to establish facilities on this side of the Guyana-Brazil border to cater for the expected increase in cross-border movement upon the completion of the Takutu bridge.
This is despite what is said to be a temporary halt in the construction of the bridge to facilitate a state audit by the Brazilian authorities.
A public scoping meeting was held on Friday at the Hotel Tower to allow members of the public to express concerns and suggest issues that should be covered in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the access road to the bridge.
At the meeting, technical adviser to the Ministry of Public Works and Communications, Walter Willis, said that when the construction of the bridge began in June last year, the authorities on the Guyana side were caught flat-footed and had no real input into the works.
No environmental permit was issued by the Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve the construction, but Willis' ministry contacted the EPA and worked out a way forward. An interim construction permit was granted.
The bridge is 230 metres long with two piers on each river bank. The piers would be situated on the banks so as not to cause a build up of sediment and other matter in the river.
Willis said it was observed that persons lived close to the alignment where the piers were situated and would have to be relocated.
The piers are 16 metres and 22 metres deep and were put down in a pressurised space to the required depth. Willis recalled that an accident occurred on the Guyana side when the piers were being constructed. He said an investigation concluded that it was purely an industrial accident and not due to negligence or sabotage. The two Brazilians involved, died on their way to a Bon Fim hospital, he stated.
Willis said work on the bridge stopped in February and when he visited the site on April 26, the contractor was demobilising the equipment and indicated he did not know when construction would resume.
However, Willis said the ministry would continue its obligations on the Guyana side. A multi-purpose building will be constructed to house customs, immigration, health and security personnel. Parking, inspection sheds, and a warehouse will also be built. Government had established a national coordinating committee to monitor the project comprising representatives from the ministries of Home Affairs, Local Government, Foreign Trade and Tourism, and the military among others.
A local bridge committee was also formed in Region Nine. The committee looked mainly at the day-to-day issues pertaining to the bridge, port facilities and the access road. A full EIA will have to be done to cover the access road linking the bridge to the Linden-Lethem road.
The first 500 metres of the access road would be the section motorists will use to change over according to traffic regulations. In Guyana, vehicles travel on the left side of the road while in Brazil they drive on the right side.
Willis said the Brazilians would construct the first 500 metres of the road in a contract financed by the Brazilian government and the local authorities would be responsible for the rest. He said it would be a laterite road similar to the Mabura road.
Willis noted that the access road would be just less than a mile long but emphasised the importance of getting the views of the stakeholders who would be impacted by the trans-boundary crossing. He said the impact would be felt by the entire coastal region, Linden and Lethem.
In keeping with regulations to get the views of the public, Willis said a notice of a public scoping meeting was placed in the Guyana Chronicle on April 16 to be held at Lethem and Georgetown. A subsequent notice, he said, was issued reminding the public of the Lethem and shifting the Georgetown meeting from May 3 to May 10. Stabroek News had reported that no meeting was held on May 10 though a notice was issued to that effect.
The consultant to the access road project is Denise Fraser, of Business and Environmental Services, who will head the team conducting the EIA. Fraser stressed the importance of ensuring the implementation of the environmental management plan, coming out of the EIA, into the project.
She said the plan will include schedules to be kept, costs, and areas where training was required. Mitigation measures and recommendations will also be formulated together with a monitoring plan and emergency response plan.
Fraser said the scoping will be used to identify the priority areas to be addressed in the EIA, out of a range of potential problems. She said there was a need to focus on the manageable numbers since they could not look at all because of financial and time constraints.
The consultant stated that consultations were already had with other agencies to get their input. She said the views coming out of the various consultations were still to be incorporated in the terms of reference (TOR) for the EIA.
Fraser stated that EIA would have to address the legal regulatory requirements which covered the environmental aspects of the project. It will examine the physical, biological and socio-cultural environment of the immediate area in proximity of the project.
The EIA will attempt to distinguish the significant positive, negative, and avoidable impacts and find ways to deal with them. Fraser said it would also have to look at the issue of opening up the area for easy access by the Brazilians. The impact of relocation of families would be examined.
Fraser is heading a team comprising Dr Michael Scott, who will be responsible for the social aspect of the project; Corraly Simmons, biological aspect; and Dr Clifton Inniss, physical and engineering aspect.
Environmental Management Director of the EPA, Dr David Singh, said the EPA issued the construction permit for the bridge under the condition that an EIA be done for the trans-boundary crossing.
Explaining the process, he said a consultant - in this case Fraser and team - hired by the developer would work along with the EPA to draft up the TOR for the EIA.
Members of the public have a period of 28 days from the public scoping meeting to make their contributions of issues they would like to be addressed in the EIA. The scoping meeting is a formal opportunity for the public to make its contribution on environmental issues involved in the project. Another scoping meeting was held in Lethem, Region Nine (Upper Takutu/Upper Essequibo) two weeks ago.
After the TOR is settled, the consultant will conduct the EIA and submit it to the EPA for review upon completion. The draft EIA would be made available to the public and a 60-day period would be allowed for review and comments.
The Environmental Assessment Board would then conduct an overall review, encompassing the views of the EPA and the public, and then resubmit the final EIA to the EPA with recommendations and conditions.