KARACHI: Reservoirs’ water not safe, Sepa tells govt
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, May 25: The Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) has cautioned the government that the unrestricted disposal of domestic and industrial waste in the Indus can cause hazardous effects on the health of Karachiites’, who are supplied water from the river.
The warning, which is based on a recent survey of four canals offtaking from the Kotri Barrage, the last controlling point of the Indus, is being taken seriously by experts, particularly after a considerable increase in gastroenteritis cases in the interior of Sindh.
“It is very alarming that the Keenjhar Lake, which is important wetland supplying water to Karachi, is receiving highly polluted water from Kalri Baghar Feeder (KB Feeder) and being turned into another Manchhar,” said a Sepa report submitted to the chief secretary.
In order to get the concentration of unwanted deposits in water downstream Kotri reduced, scientists and other experts have been stressing for release of some fresh water.
They feel that fresh water, which is not available downstream Kotri since January this year, can turn various water bodies environmentally and hygienically fit.
It is held that unsafe water is not only affecting public health but also causing an increase in numerous other problems.
Highly toxic water received from Manchhar Lake, mixed only with meagre amounts of freshwater from the Indus at the Jamshoro Filter Plant, and its further travel without any treatment is believed to be the main reason for the hazardous deterioration in the quality of water available for drinking, and the deaths from such contaminated water in Hyderabad and surrounding areas in May 2004.
Scientists of the Sindh University, too, observed recently that water at Korti downstream was not fit for human consumption.
Water above the Kotri Barrage indicated total dissolve Salts (TDS) as 212 parts per million (ppm) while down Kotri, it was about 1,000 ppm and more, as against the WHO permissible limit of 500ppm.
The Sepa survey in question was conducted by it’s ex-director Dr Iqbal Saeed Khan and other officials, including Ashfaque Hussain Pirzada, Kishan Chand and Irfan Abbasi.
The team visited Phuleli Canal, Pinyari Canal, Akram Wah and KB Feeder on April 27 and 28, 2006.
The report said that Manchhar Lake had been destroyed because of more or less the same reasons that the Keenjhar Lake was now facing.
“Still there is time available to avoid another Manchhar in the making, and to retain a water body for supply of water to Karachi,” said the report.
In the meantime, it is learnt that after receiving the Sepa reports, and another one from the Sindh University, the chief secretary has issued directives to Sindh irrigation and health department and local governments concerned to go through the reports and prepare plans to improve the quality of water and provide necessary medical treatment to those affected by water contamination.
A source said that the chief secretary had also convened a meeting of the representatives of different departments to discuss “Phuleli Canal Becomes a Wasteland Waterway” on May 30.
According to the Sepa report, Kotri Barrage is the source of domestic, industrial and irrigation water supply for an area of about 278 million acres. The four canals off take from the barrage — KB Feeder from the right bank and Pinhyari, Phuleli and Akram Wah from the left bank.
The KB Feeder, whose design discharge is 9,100 cusecs and has a compound area of 0.656 million acres, feeds water to the wetlands, namely Keenjhar and Haleji.
The four canals are open to various effluents, sewage, industrial waste, etc., hence there is every possibility that the people consuming the water could suffer from various diseases, Sepa remarked.“I recommend that an early action should be taken and among various measures, the Sindh irrigation department should ensure that waste waters and effluents from cities are not discharged further into the canals/feeders which are under its jurisdiction,” said Dr Iqbal, the acting DG of Sepa.
It was further stated in the report that disposal of untreated domestic and industrial wastewater was the main source of the water contamination in Sindh.
The untreated wastewater contains dissolved solids, suspended solids, inorganic and organic compounds, oils, solvents, greases, thermal discharge, etc., and can cause ‘corcinogens’ or ‘teratogens’ (products of birth defects) and mutations developing ‘mutagens’.
The untreated wastewater flows into the canal and its surrounding areas thus causing serious health hazards to human population, as well as flora and fauna.
The groundwater also gets polluted due to leachate of injurious chemicals and turn to be unfit for human consumption and agriculture use. Therefore, it is very necessary to protect the freshwater bodies of Sindh province, especially in the backdrop of the little available sweet groundwater.
“In our visit, we reached the conclusion that the continual release of low- or high-level contaminants of municipal and industrial wastewater had a dramatic impact upon the fate and behaviour of minerals or nutrients and physiochemical parameters within water,” said the report.
