THE EDITOR: Tuesday's fairly brief, but heavy shower of rain in the St Ann's, Maraval and Diego Martin valleys brought a disproportionate amount of damage to these communities, given the amount of rain which fell.

The flooding (overflow of the large concrete drains which drain these valleys) was caused by overflow because all these watercourses are habitually clogged with tall grasses, shrubbery, dumped garbage and even cut-up trees.

A tree trunk, along with other garbage, clogged the St Ann's River when the log was trapped under the bridge at the junction of the St Ann's Road and Cascade Road. Homes were flooded and distress was caused.

Our incompetent Minister of Works (most recent in a long line of gross incompetents in this field) is another buffoon who is advocating "retention ponds" to retain floodwaters. Where will these ponds be located? One each for St Ann's (the Dry River), Maraval River and Diego Martin River?

When (if) you find a location, how big will each retention pond be? Do you know how much water flowed down each of these rivers on Tuesday? When the retention ponds are full, what will you do? Pump them out? Dredge them?

How ignorant can we be? Clean our watercourses of garbage, grasses, bush and the like and these concrete rivers will flow into our already-existing "retention pond." It is called the Gulf of Paria.

Media, please take up this simple, basic issue and spare us from the ignorance of successive governments.

I have copied the Association of Professional Engineers of TT with this. They worked on the desilting of our rivers and drains in 1987, and helped to eliminate flooding for three years, until all silted up again.

Please help, media - raise this and save our country from this wilful ignorance.

Peter O'Connor

Cascade