For several decades there had been talk of a project that would seek to recover the original color of the bay of Cartagena and mitigate the risk of flooding in the riverside towns of the Dique canal. This is how on June 1 the minutes of Start of the project Restoration of Degraded Ecosystems of the Canal del Dique.
It should be noted that the project, which has a total length of 115.5 km between Calamar and Cartagena Bay, is located in Functional Unit Zero, where dredging of the waterway is intended to ensure its navigability.
The execution of the works includes, among others, a system of locks and gates to prevent the uncontrolled entry of large quantities of sediment and flow. Two locks will be in Calamar and Puerto Badel; It will also have floodgates in Calamar. Read here: Projections on passenger movement at Cartagena airport
The execution of these works, as well as their respective maintenance, will be done through a concession that will have a term of 15 years and estimates the generation of 61,766 direct and indirect jobs in the area.
The population benefiting from this project will be 1.5 million inhabitants of 19 municipalities: eight in the Atlántico (Campo de La Cruz, Candelaria, Luruaco, Manatí, Repelón, Sabanalarga, Santa Lucia and Suan); ten from Bolívar (Arjona, Arroyohondo, Calamar, Cartagena de Indias, Mahates, María La Baja, San Cristóbal, San Estanislao, Soplaviento and Turbana); and one from Sucre (San Onofre).
Coastal Protection
For his part, Juan Carlos Monzón, director of works for Coastal Protection, referred to the progress of the project’s works. It should be noted that this began in December 2021 amid protests by tourist servers.
“We are at 87% progress considering the $140 billion of the current contract, that is, they are the addition and the objective is to finish in May of next year,” he said. Read here: Batteries! Airline put tickets at $79,900 to travel in 2024
Monzón specified that his contract was extended until April: “The idea is to finish 2 of the 3 pits and everything on Beaches 4 and 5. The spurs are ready, but without adjustment, but spur 6 would be extended with the 60 meters inclined. Basically, the sand filling on beaches 1, 2 and 3 and a moat that goes on beach 2 within that filling would remain pending.”
The only beach enabled for bathers is Beach 5, which is currently facing a prolonged erosion phenomenon caused by the rising sea. Beach 4, although the sand filling has been completed, it is expected to determine if said spa does not have rip currents to authorize its enjoyment.
It should be noted that within this project, a marginal protection was also built along Santander Avenue between the Santo Domingo curve and the entrance to the Bocagrande neighborhood.
Storm drains
After the floods that occurred in the city last November, the people of Cartagena reiterated that the District has a historical debt with the city related to the Storm Drainage Master Plan. El Universal consulted Luis Villadiego, Secretary of Infrastructure, who assured that to mitigate the risk of flooding, two solutions were being proposed with the proposals established by the Water as Leverage (WAL) engineering teams.
“What we always state from the Infrastructure Secretariat is that this must be structured from a comprehensive perspective through the implementation of a special purpose company through a PPP, or for example, through Aguas de Cartagena, adjusting the scope of its contract, a suggestion that has even been suggested by the Vice Ministry of Water,” said the official.
And I continue: “The main objective is to carry out the adjustments, designs (for example the designs proposed in WAL), construction, operation and maintenance of all this infrastructure that exceeds one billion pesos. They are complex projects that must be defined under what mechanism the execution and implementation model is structured to start from the basis of the existing designs and proposals, but the most important thing is to define a financing plan.
He said that we may be talking about new measures that allow each of the drains to be built phase by phase, their cleaning and also the operation of pump rooms that would be placed in various parts of the city.
“That is why a mixed public-private figure is necessary that has the capabilities to respond to the complexity of the need for both rainfall phenomena and tidal intrusion controls,” Villadiego emphasized.
WAL proposals
On September 26, at the Adolfo Mejía Theater, the multidisciplinary teams of the Water as Leverage program, which translates ‘Building with water’, presented to citizens 11 proposals for sustainable infrastructure designs for Cartagena.
These proposals were developed in co-creation workshops in which local and national actors participated, including communities, academia, the private sector and the public sector.
The 11 proposals include innovative and sustainable solutions for the city’s coastal marine edge, the La Virgen swamp, the canals and lakes, and the Cartagena bay.
2023-12-24 23:01:28
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