ISLAMABAD, Dec 22: Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) told a Senate committee on Wednesday that soak pits and septic tanks were temporary arrangements to control the flow of solid waste into the Rawal Lake. “We need treatment plants and proper piping to completely divert the toxic flow away from the lake,” emphasised DG Pak-EPA, Asif Shuja to the Senate Standing Committee on Environment.

He confirmed the fears conveyed by environmentalists to the Ministry of Environment that the soak pits and septic tanks being built by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) would prove an eyewash.

Environmentalists say these measures, taken to comply with the Supreme Court orders to control the flow of waste into Rawal Lake, were not a permanent solution to what they hold to be “the most burning environmental concern of Islamabad”. On the contrary, they argue, the soak pits might contaminate the aquifers as there were no approved designs for tanks to handle sewerage.

They feel that neither the CDA nor the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration was serious to solve the problem.

DG Pak-EPA, however, had some comforting words for the Senate committee.

“We need breathing time to make permanent arrangements to stop the flow of waste into the lake and the soak pits and septic tanks could provide that as they have a life of roughly two years,” he said.

“A private company has been hired that will design sewage treatment plants for Bari Imam, illegal upstream developments, Diplomatic Enclave and Quaid-i-Azam University - the major contributors to the contamination of the lake. Whether CDA has the funds to establish these plants worth Rs30 million to Rs40 million each is a separate matter,” he added.

The officer informed the committee that joint field teams had plugged 411 sewage points in Islamabad territory, served 1,550 notices on individuals and filed 430 cases of violations in the Environmental Tribunal.

Representatives of the Cabinet Division and Pak-EPA claimed that as a result contamination from these sources reduced by one third.

“Further improvement will happen in the next six to seven months,” promised the DG Pak-EPA.

Contamination from illegal development upstream was not the only concern for Pak-EPA. “Poultry farms, housing societies and industry are obstructing flow of Korang River that fed Rawal Lake besides increasing silt that has decreased dam capacity. The situation is worse in low flow seasons,” said DG Asif Shuja.

Chairman of the Committee Senator Mohammad Humayun Khan took exception that civic bodies needed Supreme Court’s intervention to realise their responsibilities.

Minister for Environment Hamidullah Jan Afridi chipped in that CDA had been reluctant even to control pollution in the streams running through the capital.

“CDA needs to introduce littering fines and other strict measures and punish polluters,” said the minister who has taken CDA to court on several environmental issues.

Though the environmental tribunals could impose fine up to Rs1 million, and award one-year imprisonment, their verdicts were seldom implemented, the committee was told.

“The process of handling cases is lengthy and often involves even the prime minister and the chief justice,” said Hameedullah Jan Afridi who claimed to have spent two years to strengthen environmental tribunals.

However, the devolution of his ministry to the provinces seemed to weigh more on Mr Afridi as he lamented that he had worked two years to strengthen the environmental tribunals.