Inorder to find a permanent solution for the persistent issue of sand bar formation at the mouth of the Cooum river in Chennai, WRD or water resources department has been taking efforts. Point is that the work of building a training wall (at the mouth of Cooum river and to dredge the waterway to minimise sedimentation etc) has been going on now at good speeds.
It is now brought to light that WRD has completed about 40% of this training wall construction work on either side of the mouth that is perpendicular to the sea. Earlier at the mouth of Cooum river, groynes were laid is known. These groynes were removed for the permanent opening of the river mouth and direct water flow into the sea.
This training wall construction is a Rs 70 crores project and a combination of concrete tetrapods and boulders have been laid. This was according to some officers from WRD. They explained that boulders were not used for the entire height because transporting boulders would be very difficult. Now, over a layer of boulders, a mixture of concrete tetrapods of 4 to 8tonnes of weight were being laid. During the monsoons, there would not be any chance of boulders getting dislocated.
The officersfrom WRD are hoping that the structure that would be 8m in height would help in the eadsy draining of the flood waters, smooth tidal action and coastal erosion would be avoided.
Information collected is that the training wall on the southern side has been laid for 260m in length out of a total of 310m. On the other side,210m of the proposed 265m have been covered. It is now mentioned that soon about 4500 tetrapods would be placed.
Based on the design provided by the National Institute of Ocean Technology or NIOT, the work is being carried out now.