SINKOR OLD ROAD, MONROVIA    LIBERIA     WEST AFRICA    TEL: 06 994 973 EMAIL: SONWHIP@YAHOO.COM  WEBSITE: http://www.dchristell.rlhub.com

 Friday, October 17, 2008 

Environmental Crisis Demands Urgent Answers

 By Adolphus Mccritty/Architect

We once again want to comment on how we can best participate in the National Reconstruction Process in our homeland. In so doing, we must first identify and isolate the cause of the problem, then suggest practical solutions to effectively solve the nagging problems.

Interestingly enough, the rainy season is just about over. The cumbersome problem facing traveling by road throughout Liberia is terrible, a result of a lack of a well-designed and well-built Road Network System. One hundred and sixty years have come and gone, yet we still have not demonstrated to our citizens that we are capable of building roads worthy of travel year-round. 

As much water we have to deal with one rainy season after another, we still have not yet mastered the hydro-dynamics of run-off water control. I may be wrong in this instance, but as far as I have checked and researched, there is not one copy of a Hydro-Study available on any construction project to-date for any period in our country's history. Because of the lack of this critical information, there are numerous potholes, the obvious lack of a modern sewer system, and very bad and hazardous road conditions through out the country.

There is not one single retention pond throughout the country. All the drainage systems are either make- shift, clogged-up, non-functional, even worse or non-existing. The roads keep washing away at culverts; bridges are not properly built, and there is a lack of properly built, and installed headwalls, vegetation, rip-raps, silt fence, and other erosion control devices normally put in place to prevent disaster.

Another identifiable problem area is the Jallah Town Road improvement project. This project, as meaningful as it was, is a laughingstock until the new Market Building was built. At least now, something positive can be said about Jallah Town Road. It seems like everyone who worked on this project just did their own thing the only way they knew how to do it. As a result, money was wasted and the public did not benefit from that public service. Had I been in charge or in any decision-making role for that project, I would have made the chief engineer in charge of that project to sit in a wheel chair and try to navigate his way from the Methodist radio station all the way to Bassa Community. Then he would write a report on how good or bad the trip was.

I have also been able to conduct a study on the erosion problem encountered throughout coastal Liberia. Earlier this year, I made several trips to the affected areas and the surrounding environments and noticed that the natural Eco system between the Ocean and Land has been severely tampered with by Man. To explain this to you on a layman's level, I will begin by referring you to the age old saying that.... "All Rivers lead to the Sea".

This process is a Natural Agreement between the Land, Lakes, Rivers, Creeks, and any small body of water in motion that they will all go into the sea, and the sea in turn will send all excess water back to the land to clean itself out. You have heard of the high tides and low tides. High tides are when the water from the sea assembles and arrives on land. When the tide lowers, the water from the land enters the sea supplying it with fresh water.  This interaction between the Land, Rivers, and Sea has been going on from the beginning of time. If you take the time and notice the rivers keenly, you will discover that in the morning hours the river will flow in one direction; and by evening time, the river will again flow in another direction. This movement is very critical as the whole earth depends on everything that happens in the process.

What has happened in New Kru Town, West Point, and many other areas affected by the sea erosion is due to global warming, and has accumulated huge amounts of water from melting ice in the Arctic Region, and has to recycle back to land. As the waves comes in with the water, the sea discovers that it can no longer send water to land the way it was agreed upon by Mother Nature. Naturally, the water has to go somewhere, as it cannot go back to where it came from.

Now, here is what Man has done to cause this interference between the Sea and the Rivers. The thing called "WET LANDS" is the road on which the water from the Rivers, Lakes, Creeks, and small bodies of running water use to travel back and forth to the Sea. What Man has done is to build houses, create dump piles, and do all sort of things in the WET LANDS, thereby blocking the road for the water to travel freely.

In the case of New Kru Town, West Point, and Banjor near Hotel Africa, you will notice the size of wet lands are increasing, and the natural pathway of the water is being diverted irregularly because people are dumping fill dirt in the Wet Lands to create a site to build on. Perhaps this is rampant because nobody has claims or deeds to those parcels of land. Take a cruise along the Gardnersville Road, starting from Free Port. If you look on both sides of the Road, you will see numerous houses, workshops, factories, even make shift shanty shacks, and huge dumpsites being built in the swamps.

They are really the ones causing the sea erosion and not sand mining, which is commonly blamed for the problem. What people seem not to comprehend is that with every wave that hits the beach, tons and tons of sand is dumped on the shores 24 hours round the clock, 365/366 days a year. There is no way that Man can take enough sand from the beach to cause massive erosion as have been experienced in these areas. The next thing that is happening as in the case with Cee-Cee beach is that the area of the Lagoon, which serves as a holding pen for waters from the sea to land, and from Land to sea is being use to construct building right on the shores. In some places, it serves as a swimming pool for visitors to the beach.

As these swimmers play in the lagoon, the swimming motions disrupt the natural rhythm pattern of the flow of the body of water. Thus, the function of the Lagoon becomes useless at times. These are issues that many take for granted, and overlook. But the real effect we see is when we hear of numerous people displaced because of Sea Erosion. Do not blame the Sea for this, take a good look in the mirror, and see who image is there.

Thanks for caring enough, and I look forward to my next study, which would be on Road Construction in Liberia. I am sending you a copy of a comprehensive development plan layout for the West Point Area, and New Kru Town area. I hope this 25-year development Plan would reach the proper eyes and ears so that it can be further studied and implemented.

 Adolphus Mccritty, an Architect, lives in Monrovia, Liberia. He can be reached at TEL: 06 994 973 EMAIL: SONWHIP@YAHOO.COM,  WEBSITE: http://www.dchristell.rlhub.com