Martin Henry
WE'VE BEEN THERE, seen it. Water, water everywhere, covering trees and houses and continuing to rise as the Moneague lake does what it hasn't done for a while. Hundreds of fellow Jamaicans came to see in just the couple of hours that we were there on the second New Year's Day.
We went, a birthday picnic lunch in tow, with a conflicting mixture of excursion, excitement and guilt. The misfortune of the local people whose lives have been dislocated is no fun. A special occasion outing to the rising lake which did it is.
As tiny little row boats plied the rippling surface of the lake offering rides, the positions of the drowned roadways were marked out by partially submerged light posts. In the 'one love' banter of a decent and peaceful Jamaican crowd which had turned up from all over in everything from SUVs to crammed deportee taxis and buses, someone asked why Government had endorsed the settlement in such a vulnerable spot by putting in infrastructure. But can the Government just ignore vulnerable unauthorised settlements because people should not be encouraged to stay there?
LIMESTONE BASIN
Moneague, a town I have always loved passing through, sits in a limestone basin. The lake is formed in the bottom of the bowl with water seeping into it from underground. There are several other settlements with a similar geology. Newmarket in St. Elizabeth and Cave Valley in St. Ann are two such which have been flooded from rising ground water. One of the most impressive basins on the island is the one in which sit Bog Walk, Linstead and Ewarton. But the Rio Cobre cuts through this one providing adequate drainage.
If Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 showed up weak construction, the hurricanes Ivan in 2004, and Dennis, Emily and Wilma last year have served to highlight vulnerable areas for human settlements. Storm surges, flooding and landslides in expected and unexpected places, land sinking, new rivers popping up and old ones changing course, we have had them. Ordinary citizens learned from Gilbert the necessity of better construction and the authorities tightened up on building codes and regulations. We must learn the lessons from last year's super hurricane season. Clearly settlements will have to be more rationally regulated and more done where possible to secure old ones.
We were half-seriously proposing that the Ministry of Agriculture stock the Moneague lake with Tilapia only to learn that the rising waters are being polluted with raw sewage and with seepage from the bauxite red mud lake on Mount Diablo. There are questions about the role of bauxite mining in the area in the exceptional present rise of the lake.
NETWORK OF CAVES
At the same time springs are breaking out in Fern Gully and elsewhere north of the lake, apparently fed by the same water flow feeding the lake. Under there, everything is connected. There is a massive network of caves beneath the limestone formation of central Jamaica and a massive link-up of ground water flow through the fractured porous limestone.
We are promised super active hurricane seasons at least for the next decade which will deliver a lot of wind and water each year. And something is going on under there. The whole land and water system seems to have been affected in significant ways by recent natural events.
There is an ingrained Jamaican tendency that 'this too shall pass'. Residents of Swamp are perhaps waiting for the usual subsidence of the lake to resume life as usual. The Water Resources Authority has indicated that that could take a year. New rainfall will very likely drown that prediction.
In the meantime, let's get the mess out and get the fish in. The Moneague lake is a major tourist attraction which could take some development. A few sellers are doing a little hustling there without the prevalent in-your-face approach.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
