Dead storage from Red Hills pumped out now for the supply of drinking water to Chennai
Posted on: 29/Mar/2019 10:03:16 AM
This is crisis time for the people in Chennai as they are facing severe drinking water problems. The water level in the Chennai city reservoirs have gone very low and have hit the rock bottom now. To sustain the drinking water supply in Chennai, dead storage is now pumped out.
It is now revealed that on Thursday Chennai Metro Water had begun to draw dead storage from the Red Hills reservoir by using giant pipelines. The shocking truth is sand is now present and is visible in the vast area of Red Hills lake. The sand is visible near the deepest point of the water body. Water storage has gone down here in the last 3 consecutive years for the want of rains.
The water level present in the reservoir has gone down to such an extent now that drawal through gravity is not at all possible now. In addition to this there has been shortage in the resources and this has made the water agency to tap the minimal storage of 328 mcft that is 10 percent of its capacity of 3300 mcft. The pipelines of 750 mm in diameter have been sunk up to a depth of 6 feet into the lake and the Metro water has been pumping 100 million liters of water or mld per day after nearly a year of time.
There are treatment facilities available in places like Kilpauk and Red Hills etc. The important information is water drawn is being sent to these above mentioned places for treatment and then water would be distributed.
According to an official, the water storage is expected to last till the end of April in the Red Hills reservoir. He then hinted about the evaporation loss that was equal to the daily drawal and said it was a huge issue. The important piece of news is Chembarambakkam reservoir has gone bone dry now and drawal of water is possible for just 10 days in the current situation. Beginning from April, water from the abandoned quarries in Sikkarayapuram would totally replace it.
It is worthy to note that since early this week the metro water department has already began pumping 30 mld of water from the Cholavaram lake. This would go on till the middle of April month. Blending of water from Cholavaram Lake is being carried out in the Red Hills reservoir and later the water gets pumped for Chennai city water supply.
