[NYTr] Cuba: Dams Reinforced at Camaguey's Reservoirs

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Radio Havana Cuba
http://www.radiohc.cu/ingles/portada.htm


Dams Reinforced at Camaguey's Reservoirs

Camaguey, January 3 (RHC-Granma)-In order to prevent a repeat of the
situation in 2007 when 32 reservoirs began overflowing in Granma
province, Gustavo Riesco Lopez, director of Camaguey's Hydraulic
Exploitation Enterprise, stressed that prevention is the key guaranteed
by reparation and maintenance of the installations.

Juan Hernandez Zayas, an expert with the Hydraulic Projects and
Research Enterprise, pointed out that the most damaged reservoir, after
a 600-meter landslide on its slope, was the San Pedro Dam. After the
long droughts in previous years, the constant and heavy rains saturated
the bank with its high clay content, and it became unstable, and
cracked.

Although the earth moving projects were concluded and are now waiting
for the imminent arrival of construction workers, research has
continued to perfect the studies on the current situation of the dam
(with a 27 million cubic meter capacity) so it can be exploited safely
and benefit the rice program in the region.

Irving de la Victoria Gómez from the National Institute of Hydraulic
Resources (INRH) clarified that the province is not only the one with
the largest number of hydraulic projects to be repaired (18), but also
the territory with the largest amount of projects of this kind on the
island, with 53 dams, 176 small dams, 14 to divert river waters, 13
master channels, and 212 kilometers of construction against floods.

Camaguey, is Cuba's second most important province in terms of water
storage. Projects began her in 1964, when shortly after the passage of
hurricane Flora, President Fidel Castro, called on the strengthening of
hydraulic works.

With only three dams "inherited" in 1959 -- Pontezuela, San Felipe, and
Palmarito -- with a total of less than a 15 million cubic meter
capacity, Camaguey became totally absorbed in a huge program of
hydraulic works, which ended in 1990.

>From then on, with the arrival of the special economic period following
the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a deficit of maintenance
accumulated for several years. The implementation of payments according
to performance and fulfillment of technical and operational
specifications gradually contributed to reversing the situation.

Of the 18 projects included in the repair plan, two are irrigation
canals for rice-growing fields concluded in the municipality of
Florida, while the projects to be carried out by the Construction
Ministry at the San Pedro Dam, the Duran hydro-regulator, which had
cracked, and the Najasa II Dam, with damages on its slope, stand out
due to their importance. All should be finished in June, 2008.

Other channels and works to divert river waters, also damaged on their
slopes and outflows by the October 2007 heavy rains, complete the
panorama of repairs and improvements scheduled in Camaguey.