KARACHI, June 5: While the government sits on the city’s sewerage project approved six years ago and appears content with its ineffective checks related to the environment, the continuous release of highly toxic effluent into the sea has jeopardised both marine ecology and public health.

This was one of the important points highlighted at a seminar on marine and coastal ecosystems held to mark World Environment Day in the Bahria auditorium on Tuesday.

The programme organised by Pakistan Navy in collaboration with the Leading Environment Awareness Foundation (Leaf), a non-government organisation, was attended by a large number of schoolchildren and navy personnel.

Giving a presentation on the impact of land-based pollutants on coastal environment in the context of Karachi, Yahya Rashid Usmani, former head of the pollution control department of the Karachi Port Trust, said Karachi was currently facing a crisis as the city of 18 million people was without a proper sewerage system.

He showed images of the unhygienic conditions prevailing around open drains filled with raw sewage and solid waste and said that 90 per cent of the sewage going into the sea was untreated.

“The Lyari and Malir rivers which were once sources of water supply to Karachi dried up a long time ago and gradually turned into drains carrying residential and industrial effluent into the sea. The two treatments plants in the city are functioning much below their capacity while the third treatment plant has been closed down,” he told the audience.

A sewerage project, he said, was announced by the government in 2005 which was taken up by the present government when it came to power, but since then there had been no progress on it. The funding, according to Mr Yahya, was to be shared by the federal and provincial governments and the KPT.

Threat to Urdu Bazaar

It was also pointed out during the programme that Urdu Bazaar faced a persistent threat of flooding as the whole sewage from Clifton and parts of Saddar was going into the Chinna Creek where huge silt had accumulated. The sewage could flow back and flood Urdu Bazaar again as it was a low-lying area.

Earlier, the Clifton sewage was diverted from the Clifton pumping station to the Mehmoodabad treatment plant and then released into the sea. But with the closure of the treatment plant, the discharge from the pumping station had been diverted to the mangroves swamps along Mai Kolachi road that is already receiving waste through the Soldier Bazaar drain.

There was also a strong concern over the lack of implementation of environmental laws and the failure of the industries to put in place a waste monitoring system.

Briefing on climate change and mangroves in the coastal areas of Pakistan, Umair Shahid, representing the World Wide Fund for Nature, explained the phenomenon of ozone layer depletion that, he said, had triggered an increase in global temperatures, sea level and change in climate.

He also briefed the audience on the many important functions the mangrove forests played in coastal ecology and said they had the ability to absorb between 70 and 90 per cent of the energy from a normal wave.

Explaining the pressures on the mangrove ecosystem and how sea intrusion had devastated coastal ecology and the life of communities in Badin and Thatta districts, he showed images indicating the large area taken over by the sea since 1952.

“The scale of devastation is alarmingly high in Keti Bundar and an estimate rate of erosion is 1.5 feet per day. Old and dense mangroves are being uprooted by strong waves,” he said.

Mohammad Moazam Khan, former director general of the marine fisheries department now working as a consultant with the WWF, said Pakistan was bestowed with a wealth of diversified marine flora and fauna that needed to be protected.

“Over-fishing, increasing number of by-catch, use of small-mesh and pollution from industries as well as thermal power plants pose a threat to our marine ecology. Besides, we need to declare marine protected zones to sustain our fishing resources,” he said.

Rear admiral Syed Imdad Imam Jafri, the chief guest, regretted the present filthy conditions at the Karachi harbour and recalled that when he had joined the navy in 1976 the harbour’s water was so clean that people used to do sailing, fishing and swimming at the harbour.

“Now the water stinks and marine life has almost become extinct there. We must think about ways and means to make our environment healthy,” he said.

Commandant of Karsaz commodore Khalid Masood and Leaf president retired colonel Sarfaraz Abidi also spoke.