Arthur Hall, Senior Sunday Gleaner Reporter

A Jamaican architect who lives and works in the United States is urging the Government to reject the proposal to dam the Bog Walk gorge in St Catherine.

Hugh Dunbar says the proposal is short-sighted and would do more harm than good.

"We must embrace a sustainable future that will balance what we take from the environment with what the environment will bear, or what we can replace the environment with," Dunbar told The Sunday Gleaner recently. "For too many years, our governments have seldom incorpo-rated environmental issues as part of national policy."

New toll road

He was responding to a proposal put on the table by the National Road Operating and Constructing Company (NROCC) to construct a new toll road to bypass the gorge while building a massive dam in that area.

NROCC has argued that damming the gorge would provide many benefits and be the perfect solution for the looming problem of insufficient potable water for the Kingston Metropolitan Region.

This is a concern shared by Dunbar, who has admitted that "Jamaica is facing significant challenges on all levels as infrastructure failures and resource depletion are caused by a growing population".

But Dunbar said there are other measures, besides damming the gorge, which can be implemented to ensure adequate water supply.

"We can create water storage by legislating the construction of cisterns for all new building construction, we can remove the silt from the Mona reservoir regularly, we can restore the absorptive capacity of the Blue Mountain range to retain so much of the water that falls in that region," Dunbar argued. "We can build new micro dams as the Cubans did so many years ago," he added.

The architect, who has been involved in projects in Jamaica, the Eastern Caribbean and the United States since 1982, also believes that measures can be implemented to prevent the frequent flooding of the gorge.

"The gorge itself needs to have its banks restored with vegetation to allow it to withstand the flood waters while planning can reduce the run-off that causes so much of the flooding," Dunbar advised.

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com