NRA struggles with drain management
(CNS): The National Roads Authority is preparing for Tropical Storm Grace by cleaning and emptying drain wells as the heavy rain is expected to cause flooding in a number of areas across Grand Cayman. However, having started work Monday, there is not enough time for the teams to do all that needs to be done because the vacuum trucks can only pump a few thousand gallons at a time.
The water load also includes dirt and contamination, which makes matters worse. Given the situation and challenges that the NRA teams are facing, Infrastructure Minister Jay Ebanks has said his ministry will be reviewing staffing levels and the equipment needed to better address emergency situations in future. But the ministry is also committed to improve future storm-water management.
With the emergency response plan for this storm focused on the low lying areas that can expect the worst flooding, six compressors and two vacuum trucks have been sent out with NRA teams. By pumping the water out of the vertical drain wells prior to the storm, the authority hopes to mitigate damage, which can be exacerbated by storm-water flooding.
“The goal is to offer as much protection as possible to people’s properties, given the circumstances,” Ebanks said, noting that the work of pumping drains is not a simple task.
Ebanks said he has been discussing future fleet acquisition with NRA Managing Director Edward Howard, looking at the useful lives of vehicles used to clean drains and when the authority will need to replace and modernize the equipment, which will mean adding to the staff as several members of the NRA teams are working part time.
Ebanks also said that a Storm Water Management Committee had recently been re-established and met in June. The main goal is to assess the methods of storm-water management, including what can be encouraged beyond the installation of vertical drain wells within development projects. Some ideas include retention ponds and storm-water basins, which could be incorporated into more development designs.
By integrating a variety of storm-water management techniques into new developments, it is hoped that flood water, which can sometimes carry harmful contaminants, will be curtailed.
The Department of Environment has been calling for a coordinated community-wide solution to storm-water management for years to stop the piecemeal approach that is making flooding worse, especially in the South Sound basin.
A spokesperson for the NRA Board told CNS the board wants to develop a closer working relationship with the CPA and the DoE to mitigate storm-water management issues. The DoE has been invited to the next NRA board meeting to explain to members the impacts of road developments on the environment. This new NRA board hopes to consider the concerns of stakeholders and is working on a public education exercise.
The minister and the board intend to take a new approach and are well aware that their good intentions might be met with some challenges. There are developers who might be reluctant to include more storm-water management techniques in their designs. But the new government is committed to addressing these issues head on and the need for better storm-water management is already obvious.
The ministry and the NRA said they will be working much more closely with the CPA and the DoE to provide the best solutions for storm-water management.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
Category: Local News, Policy, Politics
Drain wells should be maintained on a regular basis. If not they clog and will not accommodate drainage…..easily understood. However, during heavy rainfall and with rising tide, wells work in reverse with high level groundwater feeding up through the wells. Maintaining wells is important but during a storm or hurricane with excessive amounts of rainfall they will not work until heavy rainfall ceases and tide lowers.
I do feel that the NRA are bearing the brunt here, somewhat unfairly: the CPA have allowed, and continue to allow, large tracts of the wetlands, the natural drains of the Island, to be destroyed, and plugged up with concrete. They then require these developments to install drains which don’t, and can’t have a hope in hell of managing the volumes of water that they encounter in heavy downpours. In many cases of drain management – the NRA has been set up to fail by the CPA.
Just copy SW Florida. Install some reservoirs and pumping stations. Already invented and work.
“NRA struggles with drain management”
Anything after the first two words in that headline is just a bonus. NRA struggles. That covers it.
NRA dont even answer their phones!
What you call drains are just holes in the ground going nowhere. During hard rain they fill up faster than they drain into the ground.
The NRA gets to comment on every single CPA application. They mostly weigh in on driveway turn radiuses and number of parking places. The only drain comments I ever see are them suggesting a hump at the entrance to keep parking lot water from going into the street. Occasionally they comment on whether the road is big enough for the extra traffic expected according to an algorithm they use that isn’t fit for purpose.
In other news, the NRA announced that they had been taken by surprise by the arrival of a tropical storm during hurricane season, and pointed out that the 12 weeks since the start of the season had not left them sufficient time to prepare. Significant flooding could therefore be anticipated in certain parts of the island, but the public should appreciate that this was completely unavoidable because the NRA didn’t have a big enough procurement budget to buy bigger pumps that would also not be used until immediately before a storm arrived. In any event, it was all down to global warming, and if not that, then undoubtedly due to Covid, or any other reason you can imagine but absolutely not the lack of any planning or foresight on behalf of NRA management, no sirree bob.
NRA – Please wotless group. All year people complain to them about matters pretaining to drains etc. Not an emal or phone call comes as a result.
I will never rely on them for anything to do with roads.
And about time they published their board meetings minutes!!!
Blind leading the blind.
NRA know this task needs to be done every year and should have scheduled maintenance.
They wage so much money and all the mgmt drive around in nice big new suvs and pickups.
Tristan Hydes and the Minister have no idea.
The Heavyweights are out in force.
Weighing in with their ideas 🤷♂️😳😀
Maintenance and planning do not go hand in hand with government.
another glorious day for our world class civil service….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
11:38. For the last time. If you see the word Authority that should signal that the entity is not part of our world class civil service.
A statutory authority is managed by a private sector board.
I have said repeatedly that the Government decision many years ago to create the Authorities has been a disaster.
Shut these Authorities down and bring them back to the civil service.
Port Authority
Turtle Farm
NRA
Awful Reg
MACI
Airports Authority
Cayman Airways
Does anyone see my point?
I see your point; but by the same token it’s just semantics. These are government entities and government jobs and typical with government entities and jobs there is no accountability. Full sop. WAC is beyond useless, NRA beyond useless, Turtle Farm right up there, Cayman Airways same and so on and so forth. Call it whatever you want, they suck.
What were these clowns doing all year?
Take a drive up North Side and see.
We needed it!
Looking for rainbow wigs and red noses. They can’t get a hold of any project. How come the road isn’t done from Agnes Way to Smith Road? It should be a priority.
Really? Typical of most public sector operations. Who’s surprised?
So why weren’t they cleaning drains all those weeks that the rest of us were looking at each other and saying “Boy, we really could use some rain”.
They had plenty of time over the past few months to do every drain well. Sounds like a little foresight and planning are needed rather than more equipment.
Omg. These guys have like 1 job.
The operant statement: “…there is not enough time for the teams to do all that needs to be done because the vacuum trucks can only pump a few thousand gallons at a time.”
Obvious to me. This is a maintenance issue that needs to be funded. In the past, CIG trickledown has mandated that things get done in the advance of a storm.
Please, can we anticipate the needs of the various districts well before the next storm and create funding to pay for these things to be done?? Am I the only person who sees this as the only clear path toward getting necessary infrastructure maintenance done?? Well?
Why not do this at the beginning of hurricane season and as need throughout?
4.35pm Exactly!, forward planning has always beyond the abilities of the Civil Service.
True – albeit NRA is not the Civil Service. Has its own Board/Chairman and governed by its own Law- albeit overseen by Minister and Ministry DCO Hydes….
It is government operated. It is not a private business.
9:31 The NRA is not part of our world class civil service. If it was and not run by a private sector board all of these issues would have been sorted years ago.
The private sector simply doesn’t know how to manage these agencies.
Ah yes, that private sector board appointed by the government. And the employees paid by the taxpayer. That private sector operation?
It may not be the civil service, but that doesn’t mean it’s the private sector. It’s government top to bottom.
During the Hurricane Season why not clean out the drains every week or so? That way we wouldn’t be caught with our pants round our ankles when a storm arrives (which always seems to be the case).
Once again government entities ignore science and don’t do planning. They make it up as they go along!
What are they doing the other 362 days of the year?
Building roads in North Side