Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Project to improve capacity of sewage treatment plants in progress

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI AUG. 9. The ongoing project to enhance the capacity of city sewage treatment plants would be completed in one and a half years, said the director of Environment department, Tamil Nadu, S. Balaji, at a seminar at the C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar Foundation here today.

Speaking on `Coastal ecology', he said, with the completion of works under the Chennai City River Conservation project, the city's sewage could be treated in an improved manner.

Besides raising the capacity of sewage treatment plants, the Chennai Metrowater Supply and Sewerage Board had taken up the work of plugging about 420 sewage outfall points on the six waterways such as Cooum and Buckingham Canal, Dr. Balaji said.

Out of about Rs.1,200 crores allotted to clean the waterways, the department had spent about Rs. 491.52 crores on the project.

On conserving coastal ecology, he said, while setting up of new industries along the coastal regulation zone and discharge of raw effluents had been prohibited, dumping of solid waste such as dry ash had been reduced by supplying them to cement and brick manufacturers.

About 80,000 children would be added to the 1.6 lakh members of the National Green Corps, Dr. Balaji said, adding, "awareness about conservation of bio-diversity and implementation of legislation are two sides of the same coin".

The Environment Director highlighted the classification of coastal regulation zones, which included ecologically sensitive areas such as coral reefs and areas close to the shoreline such as Tuticorin and several developmental plans for coasts including conservation of sand dunes along the East Coast road.

The director of CReNIEO, P. J. Sanjeeva Raj, explained the `Pulicat Lake Model' for biodiversity restoration in brackish water.

The benthic habitat or species at the bottom of the lake were the worst affected owing to siltation, Dr. Raj said, adding biodiversity had to be safeguarded at all costs.

Talking about the experimental methodology adopted in Pulicat, he said the keystone species, edible oysters, which need hard surface to settle, were restored within eight months by placing tiers of country roof tiles at the bottom of the lake.

Such measures could be adopted in other lakes such as Pallikaranai swamp and Kovalam to restore the biodiversity, he suggested.

Faunal ecology and mangrove ecosystem were also discussed.

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