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• Caribbean
• Environment
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• Sancti Spiritus
• Business and Economy
• Science and Technology
• 06 / 14 / 2009

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According to Escambray newspaper Miguel Angel Noriega, technical director of the Hydraulic Exploitation Enterprise that runs this channel, the works were concluded in barely six months: the cleaning and clearing of the vegetation for 5.3 kilometers (some 3 miles) of the part of the river that crosses under the bridge and toward the south to remove all the sediments accumulated for years that were blocking the river current and could have move or knock down the viaduct.

The specialist added that they cleared some 3 kilometers (2 miles) of roads as well, and that this situation happens because the river runs on a plain close to the coast, and as time passes, water carries waste and soil from higher places. Workers from central Ciego de Avila province rectified the river course at a remote area: they moved 400,000 cubic meters of soil, over 300 tons of diesels were spent and the total cost surpassed the 3.5 million Cuban pesos.

The bridge is 100 meter long and 4 meter tall, is made of concrete and opened on the upper part. It was built in 1972 with the purpose of having this channel to cross over the river thus carrying water from the Zaza reservoir to the rice complex and to Ciego de Avila. Twice in the 1990s these works were started, but due to lack of resources they were left unfinished.

This time they could finish them thanks to the use of Chinese heavy equipments like bulldozers, retroexcavators, loaders and trucks. In order to achieve the complete safety of the bridge-channel, and to prevent ruptures, which could cause problems in the supplies for a long time due to the immense repair costs, it is needed to build the Naranjo reservoir, north of La Sierpe town in this province.

This reservoir, which could store some 10,000,000 cubic meters of water with a 1 kilometer long curtain, is now in the geological and topographic studies phase and we are doing all the preliminary engineering research to build it in the future, concluded Noriega.

(Juventud Rebelde)