Reason for the sudden white foam in the Cooum stretch near Napier Bridge in Chennai
Posted on: 05/Jan/2021 9:17:38 AM
If you had gone to Marina Beach on Sunday then you would have got surprised by the white thick foam brought by the waves. This foam has got bacteria and phosphates and must not be played in.
Reason for foaming:
It was brought to light by some sources belonging to the WRD that such foaming took place after the heavy rains as the run-off would deposit detergents from land into the rivers. The foaming was because of the combination of factors such as high winds, rough seas plus presence of high levels of phosphates in detergents etc.
The foaming has been witnessed in the portion of Cooum that empties into the sea near Napier Bridge. The southward moving ocean current near Marina Beach brought this foam to the beach.
The amazing piece of information is that the foaming could be seen as far as 3kms away at Nochikuppam near the Lighthouse. It was mentioned by the sources that in the last 2 months considerable flow of rain water in the Cooum had diluted the pollutants like sewage etc.
Pallikaranai based NCCR or National Centre for Coastal Research has been regularly monitoring the Cooum estuary since 2013 onwards. A scientist belonging to NCCR spoke about how there have been 7 to 8 incidents of high foaming in these years. He then mentioned about the sample collections that were done every month and how the phosphate level that would be just 1to 3 micromole per litre of water would increase to 15 to 25 micromoles per litre of water during frothing.
