32 tonnes of dust to be generated by metro phase 2 in Chennai
Posted on: 02/Sep/2019 10:00:32 AM
We all want our Chennai city to be free from dust and pollution but Chennai won’t be dust free and pollution free in the next few years. In the last 10 years, Chennai endured dust, pollution, traffic diversions and traffic congestion etc to get 45 km metro rail network.
The important information is 118.9 km metro phase-2 has been planned to link Chennai city with its suburbs by the year 2026. It is revealed that the motorists have to put up with high levels of pollution in the next few years while the metro rail corridors take shape.
It is shocking to note that 32 tonnes of dust might be generated in the Chennai city by the trucks carrying the construction materials and disposing excavated soil during the construction of 3 corridors. This was as per CMRL.
Information collected is besides dust, levels of many pollutants might also go up in Chennai and these pollutants include 132 tonnes of carbon monoxide, 6 tonnes of PM 2.5 and hydrocarbons, 274 tonnes of nitrogen oxide and more than 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
It must be noted that the DPR for phase-2 had estimated the emission due to truck movement on account of transportation of civil construction materials plus disposal/backfilling of earth during the construction time. Point is when compared to phase-1 the size of phase-2 is more than double and the amount of soil excavated and transported out of the site might also double.
In phase-1, the trucks made as many as 9 lakhs trips to dispose 4.5 million cubic metres of soil. There is still no clarity in the quantity of dust or pollutants that were released in the air in the last 10 years of the construction of phase-1. It is now said that in the phase-2 construction, 10.69 million cubic metres of soil would be removed and in addition to this trucks and cranes might make trips to bring the construction materials from the pre-cast yards to the construction sites.
Pollution would be inevitable in the construction phase because materials and muck have to be transported. In the phase-2, pollution might be spread over longer duration of construction. This was as per Mr. Somasundaram, former chief general manager (construction) CMRL.
He spoke about how the pollution would be due to the trucks mostly and how the emission would not take place in one day but over a period of time. He concluded that the emission might be there for another 15 years due to the size of the project. It is superb that Chennai city has been doing well in keeping the pollution levels under the control when compared to other cities like Delhi etc.
It was later pointed out by a professor of environmental and water resources engineering department, IIT M, Mr. Shiva Nagendra that besides trucks, concrete mixing units, slow movement of other vehicles in the narrow space after roadads are barricaded would also contribute to pollution. Point to be noted is pollution might affect the area where the work is going on and might reduce after work gets over.
