Chennai's Waterways - Meant to be a delight, but now an eyesore

A city with a river running right across it, is considered to be lucky and prosperous. But in the case of Chennai, what was meant to be a leeway to prosperity has now turned out to be a mere eyesore for people visiting the city. The city's main waterways are the rivers Cooum and Adyar, the Buckingham Canal, the Otteri Nullah, and these waterways travel for 65.92 KM inside the city. Till the year of 1983(if im right...), these waterbodies were instrumental in the growth of the City.

The Cooum originates from a village in the neighbouring Thiruvallur district and ends up in the Bay of Bengal near the Marina. It runs across a total length of 70 KM. The Adyar river originates from the Chemabarambakkam lake in Chengalpaatu and reaches its destination at the Bay of Bengal at Adyar. The Buckingham canal is a product of the British Raj and runs for over 400 KM from Andhra Pradesh to the interiors of Tamil Nadu. The Otteri Nullah runs across the East-West direction of the city for 12 KM and is the shortest of the main waterways in the city.

These waterways were efficiently used for transportation purpose and also were highly helpful during floods in the city. But in 1984, when the most defining decision to divert the sewage links to the Cooum river was taken, the whole scenario changed course. It was once a pleasure to take a walk at the banks of the Cooum in the evening, but now we would rather take a longer route to avoid the stench of the river. Crores of money has been spent to clean up the water bodies and to restore their lost beauty. But the situation has not improved the slightest. So where has all the money and effort gone into? We have been recieving help from almost all possible quarters to clean up this mess, But something has gone somewhere. Most of it could be attributed to poor planning and lack of coordinaton among the various departments responsible for maintaining the waterways in the city like the Chennai Corporation, Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board, PWD, Pollution Control Board etc etc. If there was some unified attempt by these boards the river could have seen the light long time back.

The river Cooum was recently tested for its toxic content and the tests declared the river to be 80% more dangerous than treated sewage. There is a value known as BOD(Biological oxygen demand), which determines the cleanliness state of the water in each river. A clean river is said to have 1 mg/Litre BOD value. Treated sewage has a BOD of 20 mg/L, whereas the BOD for Cooum has been measured to 36 mg/L. This means that the fishes could survive for not more than 2-3 hours in this water. There was almost 0% dissolved oxygen found in the sample from the river, and traces of heavy metals like copper were also found(Shocking!!!). The Fisheries department has confirmed that the only ways fishes could survive in the Cooum is by completely desilting the river, and preventing any further accumalation of sludge after clearing the present lot.

IMO, some basic things need to be followed before investing crores of rupees into cleaning up the waterways. Firstly the a new drainage system should be kept in place to prevent the entry of the sewage water into the rivers. We can deploy parallel leeway(enclosed one) for the sludge and sewage to enter the bay of Bengal, without affecting the Cooum. Secondly, the encroachments put up on the bank of almost all the waterways in the city should be removed and we have to take the pains of allotting them an alternate place to stay. Much worse is that we get to see some retail outlets, petty shops and even Government outlets on the banks which also add up to the mess. I would say "Remove them all!!! Right away!!!". Unless this is done all the money put into cleaning the rivers is converted to the sewage and nothing else. Before all this is done, we could be highly helped with some desilting in these waterways, so that there is some free flow of water during the floods. Recently I had heard from some source that there is some bio product which can be used to clean up water bodies. I am mot sure about the process that is carried out but it is something like breaking up harmful elements like CO2 and NO2 to reasonably less harmful elements. We just need to put these up at the point where the river originates and it ll do its work. Well I shall let you all know about that when I get the complete info on that.

Now joining the big list of helping hands is the Sathya Sai Trust, Puttaparthi who have come to help us get back the old river Cooum. This project is carried out with the help of the World bank and is slated to start by March 2009 and expected to be complete by end of 2010(I dont expect it though). The least we can pray for is that it should not be a waste of another few crores of rupess.