Opposition spokesperson on public infrastructure, Daniel Cummings is standing by his comments on the declutched sheet piles at the EC$600 million port being built in Kingstown.
“… some people think they know about everything. If there’s one thing I know about is water,” Cummings, a water engineer, who is MP for West Kingstown, told a New Democratic Party village meeting in Rockies.
“Sometimes we underestimate the power of this thing you call water. If you suddenly move the water, it exhibits a tremendous force,” he said,
He said this is why the existing Port Kingstown has a rubble wall — “to dissipate the energy that is generated from wave action”.
The government has criticised Cummings for saying at an NDP press conference on April 2 that the declutching represented a “catastrophic failure”.
However, Cummings did not back away from his comments, and reminded the audience at the event in Rockies of the failed geothermal project, which he has repeatedly said was done on the “wrong” side of St. Vincent.
The port in Kingstown is being built on land reclaimed by depositing sand mined off the east coast of St. Vincent into Kingstown Bay.
Piles were then driven to separate the reclaimed area from the sea, and the sand then compacted for construction.
However, in February, it became public that large pools of seawater had appeared inside the quay wall as a result of the loss of reclaimed material because of a declutching of the sheet piles.
Cummings said at the event in Rockies that he has repeatedly said that the exiting Port Kingstown “has suffered because ULP refused to maintain it like they do with so many projects in this country”.
He said that Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves had spoken at an April 7 press conference about engineering expertise.
Gonsalves told the media that declutching of the sheet piles created gaps in the quay wall and was observed on approximately 30% of the total installed sheet piles.
Cummings, however, noted that the main port in Kingstown, the Campden Park Container Port, the ECGC port and the Cruise Ship terminal have one thing in common.
“A very effective design. A design that has the port solid and with rubble to stop the erosion, as you’re having now in the new port,” Cummings said.
He noted said there are tons of boulders along the whole reclamation site in Kingstown.
“My friends, that is not to uglify the city. It is a very important component of the design of the port,” Cummings said, adding this is to dissipate the wave energy.
That is why it is there. It consumes the energy,” he said, adding that in the absence of this, “there is a significant force impacting on the wall that you build there.”
Cummings said the government knows they would be voted out of office soon.
“They want us to be left holding the wrong end of the stick. … They don’t care whether the project fail; they don’t care whether it makes money. They don’t care about how it looks for them.”
He said the NDP’s concern “is how it’s going to impact us, the people of this country.”
Cummings said the government said they were “using the best engineering design and throw sand in the water. …
“You bring sand and you dump it in the water. Are then what you do? You take some piles and you drive them down in that same sand that you just put there in the water. And then you say you want to put structures on top of that.
“Then suddenly you realise there’s some sand on the water side of what you put in so you going suck it out.
“Listen what they do. They suck out the sand that they put there and find out that it piles only down to the original sand. So what you think the piles do? … They say, I ain’t ha’ nothing to stop me, I going walk.”
Cummings said that the piles were not driven into the existing floor of the sea, but only into the sand that had been dumped into the water.
“I want you to understand how stupid and wicked and evil this project is under these clowns in government.”
He said the government has spoken about an engineering solution to the declutching problem.
“The only engineering solution is to redo the project because that project is going to fail over and over if you don’t build it differently.”
Cummings noted that Glenford Stewart, an engineer and former MP under the NDP administration, has spoken about a need to change the design at the port.
“Look at all the ports in this country. They want to criticise us. The main port in Kingstown, built by the Canadians, was designed in this way. They build the port on the mainland solid structure and put rubble wall to protect it.
“And they went out into the sea, put down piles in the water, and so the ships came up against the platform out to sea and with walkway to drive on to the port.”
He said all the ports in the country — including Port Kingstown, which was built in the early 1960s — were built this way.
“They have withstood the ravages of time. The main port, the piles out to sea [are] still functioning. The problem is they didn’t maintain the piles inland. They didn’t maintain them. That’s why they needed servicing,” Cummings said.
Cummings said the government has been advised to use that same design at the new port.
“But no remember, this is the expert who alone knows everything in this country,” Cummings said.
“Everybody say when they were talking geothermal that we know in North Leeward you have hot springs, and they told them if you’re going to look for geothermal energy in this country, go to North Leeward.
“But no. They want it up there on their side. And so what they do? They spend so many millions of dollars; wasted, absolutely wasted.
“They paraded through the city with equipment in red when they were going up to produce what the clown called a game changer. The only change is the additional money we have to pay for without having anything for it.
“Same thing they’re doing us with the port. They’re not listening. They don’t care. They’re only concerned about how I can look for De Comrade.”
Cummings said the situation at the port was not something he liked to talk about.
“It’s for me, one of the most painful things, because as an engineer, I know that, as Glen Stewart has said to you, and as all bona fide engineers would say to you, the way that Port Kingstown is designed, if you get a hurricane in this land half as bad as left-handed, Lenny, that port structure will not survive because there is nothing to dissipate the energy from small waves far less for the waves generated during a storm.
“This is not a joke. And no attempt to fill in that thing with sand, and no attempt to hoodwink people about the extravagance, about the decadence, about the ‘wutlissness’ in that project will fool the people of this country.”
Cummings said that NDP continues to call for an independent professional analysis of the problem and to make sure that we get the proper corrective action.
“And we say again, it’s not just about fixing those piles. It’s about looking carefully at the stupid design and making sure that a port for which we’re spending so many hundreds of millions of dollars can work and will work and will serve the people of this country.”
He said the ULP administration will not be in office and does not care.
“They leave us with debt that our children, yet unborn, will have to pay, and yet they’re using the money in the most worthless way.
“In this election, in this election, if for no other reason, you must punish these clowns. You must punish them. You must wipe them out of office and elect people who care about you, who care about and understand what it takes to do a project properly, to listen to the local knowledge and to do it in the interest of all the people of this country.”
He said the ULP is the only government he knows of in the Caribbean from which the Caribbean Development Bank had to withdraw funds because they didn’t follow the procurement rules.
“Up to today, they’re still pressuring professional contracting firms. So long as they don’t support them politically, these firms must not live. Yet other contractors could be taking billions of dollars and doing rubbish and getting away with it because of their politics.”
Cummings said he was not speaking just because he’s an engineer or an MP.
“I’ve been there. I’ve done it. The progress that the CWSA made under the NDP administration is because we followed the proper principles of involving the people who matter and making sure we got value for every cent we spent.
“And it’s that same approach we’ve got to bring to governance of this country to make sure that you, the people, get maximum benefit from every dollar we borrow,” he said.