New River Recovery Progress Notable but Ongoing

The Ministry of Natural Resources says that the New River in Orange Walk still has a way to go before it is fully recovered. As we previously reported, the oxygen content in several areas was depleted due to environmental changes, resulting in the water becoming discolored, emitting a putrid stench, and killing hundreds, if not thousands of fish and other aquatic life. The National Hydrological Service (NHS) has been one of the entities monitoring the river’s progress since the implementation of measures to address the environmental shocks. Tennielle Hendy, Principal Hydrologist at the NHS, says there has been notable progress in the river’s recovery.

Tennielle Hendy, Principal Hydrologist, National Hydrological Service: “The issue that contributed to the New River situation is what I said surface water and groundwater being linked. If we over extract, we take water we just waste it, it has an impact on our ground water and the groundwater provides base flow which keeps our rivers and streams alive. If we waste the water and we remove that inflow or that outflow into that river system then you will get all kinds of things happening. It’s a delicate balance. Flow provide mixing you know ? Oxygen, different chemicals, natural processes within the river require that inflow, it requires that movement. The New River is basically flat which means that it doesn’t have slopes and slopes help us with mixing. When we’re flat we kinda stay a little bit stagnant, it takes a little bit longer time for things to travel so there are multiple reasons why the New River was in that state. We are committed along with the Department of the Environment to doing a watershed management plan for the New River. So we’re looking forward to bringing to the table implementation plans such as these for funding in this conference. Based on the analysis of our hydrological data that the New River still has not returned to what we considered normal. It’s functioning but it’s still not normal as to what we have in our data. We just have to do the right corrective actions, be proactive and try to get those actions funded so we can make a headstart on implementing that watershed management plan which looks at the availability, all the uses that we want to use that water fo an how can we balance conservation along with sustainable development.”

A timeline for the implementation of the management plan to further assist the river’s recovery is still pending.