Blog No. 5.

I have already given the information in my earlier blog that I was involved in the Water
Resources Management Project at the Institute of Water Studies, Taramani, Chennai –
600113, reported earlier in my Blog. I was in the project for almost four years during
1986 to 1989. I did have opportunities to have intimate discussions with the consultants
on various aspects of managing the water resources. I was told that we do not have
anymore water resources within Tamilnadu to manage but have to manage only the
demand of water. So we have to evolve strategies to reduce the demand of water. One of
the components of consumption of water is the quantity required for raising food crops.
Reducing this demand is one of the strategies. We must think how the agricultural
demand of water could be minimized. Again I asked myself do we really need the amount
of food stuffs we consume daily. There is an interesting episode which will be published
at a later date as I still require some additional information to gather from my papers.

Another strategy I could think of is the reducing the domestic water supply demand.
I thought of a strategy with reference to the existing conditions of Madras, now Chennai.
This strategy should attack both the pollution and water supply at one stroke. I was of the
opinion that it is not possible to supply potable grade water by the present water supply
mines as it gets mixed up with sewage from sewerage network. The Metro Water and
Public Health authorities advise boiling of water for drinking and cooking. In almost al
the developing countries only mineral water is used for drinking. So I thought it will be
the case in our country also in the future. So it is enough non-potable grade water is
supplied through the water supply system.

The domestic non-solid waste is conveyed miles together to a distant place for treatment
and the partially treated effluent is drained to the sea, en route it pollutes the water supply
mains. Similarly water supply is also to be decentralized. Both sanitation and water
supply should be managed in an integrated way. The following suggested approach is
expected to meet the water requirements:
1. The individual houses in the thickly populated area is to be grouped together and
sewage is to be collected in a place within the area and treated using advanced
space saving technology to potable grade and the effluent used for recharging
groundwater.
2. Community sanitation blocks to be built to be used for all the purposes including
washing clothes and bathing etc., and the effluent treated to non-potable grade and
used in the complex and the surplus, if any treated to potable grade used to
recharge groundwater.
3. Business establishments and multistory flats should have their own sewage
treatment facilities within their campuses and the effluent treated and recycled for
non-potable uses and the surplus, if any, treated to potable grade to be used for
recharge of groundwater.
4. For water supply, wells or bore wells to be sunk at selected places in the above
area and the water after RO treatment to potable grade may be supplied to the
residents of the locality at subsidized cost.
5. Business establishments and multistory flat complexes to make their own
 arrangements for the water supply may be bore well with RO plant.
6. The fertilizer manufacturers to lift the sludge for further processing and
distribution to the farmers.

This will help the farmers to switch over to organic farming, save the import of raw
materials for the manufacture of fertilizers, the recharged aquifers will provoke sub-
surface flow to the streams, Cooum and Adyar facilitating perennial flow and will clean
them in due course of time.

This was in my mind when I prepared a paper ‘Strategies for Survival’. At the epoch I
was attached to Shanmugavel & Associates and practicing as a Valuer and civil
engineering consultant. One day Er. Shanmugavel asked me to contribute a paper to the
National Seminar on environmental Engineering (Traffic through Madras Water Courses)
held at Dr.Dharmambal Govt., Polytechnic for Women, Madras – 600 113 for women
during 3 &4, March 1994 and said it is urgent. I am attaching a copy of the paper without
sketches mentioned in the paper for perusal and comments.

STRATEGIES FOR SURVIVAL

S.N.Mahalingam,
Professional Engineer

"FOR ONE WHO LIVES ACCORDING TO ETERNAL LAW,

THE WINDS ARE FULL OF SWEETNESS, THE RIVER
POUR SWEETS" - A VEDIC POET

"THE MOVING WATERS AT THEIR PREIEST LIKE TASK

OF PURE ABLUTION ROUND EARTH'S HUMAN SHORES"
- KEATS

Water is essential for survival of life next tom air. This water acts as a medium,
which dissolves the nutrients for the consumption of the life forms for their sustenance.
The same water removes the toxic wastes from the living organisms as well as water-
soluble inorganic and organic wastes. For example, toxic wastes from the human body, in
the form of urine sweat and excreta. Similarly the toxic wastes accumulated in the
landmass are flushed during floods to the sea through the rivers. The quantity of toxic
elements present, for example in urine and blood will indicate the state of health of a
human body. Just like that the toxic elements present in streams and rivers will indicate
the state of their catchments, i.e., the degree of degradation. That is to say that if the
water flowing in the rivers and streams is sweet and potable then we can certainly say
that the area drained by the river has not degraded or undergone minimum degree of
degradation. Generally a river draining an area untouched by humans, virgin land, is
found to have sweet and sweet and potable water.

When man trespasses into a virgin land and starts exploiting the resources in the name
of development, the quality of water in the river starts to deteriorate and when
overexploited, above the limit of sustainability, the quantity of flow decreases and its
quality deteriorates. The flow of water may also finally stop depending upon the extent of
degradation. This indicates that the degraded land drained by the river has accumulated
toxic substances, organic or inorganic.

What was the condition of all the rivers in the past? There was flow of sparkling
water with different types of fish roaming about. They were used for drinking and
cooking. A century ago, when the Saint Ramalinga Adigalar was discoursing in and
around Chennai, the Coovum River was used for his morning ablutions. The Chennai
City and its suburbs were studded with a number of irrigation tanks, which charged the
ground water, and the private wells contained unfailing quantities of sweet water.
Seawater intrusion was not heard of in those days. Of course the population was very
much less.

At present the rivers and nallahs of Chennai were nothing but sewage drains, the
irrigation tanks which recharged the ground water and arrested the sea water intrusion
have disappeared due to the materialisation of housing colonies patronised by the
politicians. To add to the misery the leaky sewers has contaminated the ground water .
The suburbs of the city have their aquifers contaminated by the effluents from the septic
tanks. So the water drawn from the dug wells are not potable and they have to depend on
the piped water supply or water obtained from the ground water sources supplied through
water tankers during the major portion of the year. The reserves of these supplies are
diminishing sue to overexploitation and shrinkage of its recharge are due urbanisation.
The quality also will be deteriorating and it is not being monitored.

It is the price we are paying for the change of our life style from that of the last
century. Then people lived in clusters of settlements and the sewage generated then was
converted into manure and applied to the agricultural lands without contaminating the
ground water aquifers. The size of their settlement was also small enough to provide them
the amenities and comforts consistent with their style of living. The settlements were not
allowed to grow beyond the limit of sustainability.

In those days they never had bathrooms and lavatories in their houses. The people
went outside, to the river, channels, tanks or agricultural fields or community latrines for
their morning ablutions. The clothes were washed by the riverside or near community
wells. Of course their apparel was different from what was today and the polluting
detergents did not exist. They brought few pots of water for cooking purposes only. May
be that is why the ancient sastras on house building are silent about the location of
latrines within the house. The morning walk prescribed now for better health helped easy
bowel movement. Even now in villages the above practice is in vogue. This can be said
as the cultural practice that evolved to process the wastes produced to be assimilated by
the village eco-system and this aspect has to be necessarily to determine the size of the
human settlements.

But the cities and towns have been allowed to grow to greater sizes resulting the
production of as huge quantity of wastes, a greater proportion of which could not
assimilated by the by the local eco-system and has to be subjected further treatment
utilising the technology developed in Europe suited to its climatic conditions where then
plenty of water was available throughout the year.. This technology, the water carriage
system requires huge quantity of water throughout the year to convey the sewage from its
origin to the place where it is treated. The sewage delivered at the treatment plant
reported contains only one per cent of solid sewage and 99 per cent of water. For the
technology to succeed it requires a large quantity of water which is not available in
Chennai (Madras) resulting in clogging of sewers and malfunctioning which required
periodic inspection and rectification. Also as the size of the city grow in horizontally and
vertically the sewerage system has to be redesigned and reconstructed for an efficient
functioning, otherwise it will lead an environmental disaster.

One of the reasons of the disappearance the ancient cities is attributed to the
environmental degradation. So if this state is allowed to continue the day will not be far
off when the City of Chennai (Madras) has to be abandoned.

To prevent this catastrophe one must look for alternatives to the present system of
sewerage and its treatment. One of the alternatives could be to decentralise the water
supply and sewerage systems in the water scarce environment. Once this concept has
been accepted it is easy to work out details. It will be like this.

A city or town should be divided into a number of small divisions and for each there
must be community latrines, bathrooms, laundries and etc., adequate in numbers to serve
the population of each division. The water required for this facility should be met from
the bore wells. The water may have to be treated if necessary to get the required degree
of purity. The sewage generated from the community-latrine-bathroom-laundry complex
should be treated in the same complex area. The treatment plant should be designed such
that, if warranted, sewage from latrines, sullage from bathrooms and laundries are
processed separately such that the recycled water is fed back to the input system. The
sludge from individual facility may have to be processed separately as different types of
organic and inorganic substances will be present. As it is a recycling process net
additional requirement of water will only a small quantity to compensate losses. It is to
be pointed that the water required as input to this facility need not be potable grade so
untreated groundwater may be sufficient. The power required to run this system should be
from non-conventional sources such as solar energy, wind power and the gases generated
by the sewage treatment. The treated sludge can be applied to the agricultural lands or
kitchen gardens.

So in the houses the only waste materials that are to be disposed of are kitchen waste,
which is organic in nature, combustible wastes like paper, cardboard, plastics and non-
combustible materials such as glass, metal pieces and etc.. These have to be deposited by
the individual household in individual bins provided by the local authority to be disposed
off by appropriate methods. For example organic wastes can be stabilised by
vermiculture.
 By adopting this approach a large quantity of water required by the households for
toilets and bathrooms and washing clothes need not be supplied. A household of five
persons will require about 20 litres of potable grade water per day for cooking and
drinking purposes. In fact many households get the potable grade water from places about
one to two kilometers from their houses as the water in their wells have become brackish
due to pollution. The supply of this quantity of water can be entrusted to private
enterprises. In fact many households are now consuming only mineral water for drinking
and cooking.

Another approach is to decentralise the sewerage treatment block by block instead of

pumping the sewage to distant places outside the city limits. The city has to be divided
into viable blocks, and small and compact treatment plants to be constructed. Where the
site conditions do not permit building the possibility construction under the ground is to
be explored. The sewage is to be treated to 0 degree BOD and let into the drainage to be
let into the rivers after recharging the ground water at the treatment plant site or a place
nearby. Similarly one can find a number of variations. Now technology is available by
which small treatment plants can handle sufficiently large quantities of sewage

By adopting any of the methods by which the sewage is treated at the source itself,
Groundwater recharged and the purified water let into the river to generate flow which
will ultimately clean the rivers from pollution.