Sewage water mixing with Adyar River in Saidapet is a huge issue now
Posted on: 01/Aug/2018 10:30:35 AM
People belonging to Chennai would be familiar with the Adyar River. This 42.5 km river begins at the Chembarambakkam Lake and passes through Chennai city and joins Bay of Bengal at Adyar Estuary is known. It must be noted that most of the unwanted materials from Chennai is drained into this Adyar River.
How would you react when you hear the news that sewage water has been mixed with this Adyar River at Saidapet under the Maraimalai Adigalar Bridge? Shocked isn’t it!!
This mixing of untreated sewage water with the Adyar River under this popular bridge in Saidapet has now angered many residents here. The source of the discharge could not be found out. It is said that the pumping stations belonging to Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board is present near and this had let out untreated sewage into the water bodies when there was an overflow.
The Metro Water officials denied the presence of illegal pipe connections that let out untreated sewage into the Adyar River. The people living in this locality have given complaints regarding this mixing that has been taking place for 3 months now. It is clear that the problem has not been checked even after many complaints.
A resident belonging to Balaji Nagar in Saidapet spoke his heart out regarding this issue. He spoke about how the blackish grey water had foamy white froth on the surface and how it was emanating very bad smell.
Arappor Iyakkam in Chennai is a citizen’s movement that is involved in building a just and equitable society is known. Kanchan Asrani, who is a member of this anti-corruption NGO Arappor Iyakkam, expressed her thoughts and spoke about how in the month of March in 2018, a team of 15 members identified locations where such type of mixing took place and how they found that Saidapet was one such place. Kanchan Asrani also explained about how during the audit she and her team visited Maraimalai Bridge once in the midnight and once in the morning and found that flow of discharge was higher during the night.
It is worthy to note that only near the sewage treatment plants the treated sewage would be let out into the water bodies. In Saidapet there was no such sewage treatment plant. Since this audit was conducted during the non rainy season it was confirmed that this discharge was not rain water coming through storm water drains.
A civic activist, Mr. C.R. Balaji, expressed his views and spoke about how sewer manholes could have been connected to storm water drains and that was let into the river directly. He also cited the examples of Burma Nagar and MGR Nagar in K.K. Nagar where similar incidents took place.
Raw sewage is let into nearby local water bodies to lessen the pressure whenever the pumping stations overflow. The civic activist spoke about how in Kotturpuram sewage coming from storm water drains leaked into Buckingham canal and this was shown by the residents of Kotturpuram.
As per the metro water officials, the source for the discharge could not be found out. The official later spoke about the presence of 3 pumping stations in ward 171 and how there were no pipe connections to the Adyar River. The official later assured that the location would be visited again to identify the source and to stop the discharge as fast as possible.
