WASA plan for waste treatment plants yet to get going

Government efforts to cleanse the River Buriganga continues to be frustrated as the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority’s plan to set up five treatment plants so that about 10,000 tonnes of wastes flowing into the river every day could be treated before dumping is yet to get going.
The supply water agency managing director, Liakat Ali, said the project of waste management was likely to be financed by the World Bank.
The sites proposed for the treatment plants are Dasherkandi, Mirpur, Kamrangichar and Dakkhin Khan.
He, however, could not say for certain when the project, planned early 2009, would be launched. ‘The plan is still in preliminary stages.’
The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority and the shipping ministry earlier on January 6 initiated a drive to remove garbage and sludge from the Buriganga riverbed.
The drive started with operation at the Badamtali Bridge near the Sadarghat launch terminal but workers dumped the sludge in the lowland at Keraniganj and Basila and the garbage stands the chance of flowing back into the river.
‘All efforts to revive the Buriganga will go down the drain unless WASA stops dumping wastes through sewers into the river sewerage,’ said Abu Naser Khan, chairman of Save the Environment Movement.
Unabated dumping of industrial, municipal and clinical wastes and spills from motorised river vessels have polluted the river water, said sources in the environment department.
More than 6,000 tonnes of poisonous chemical wastes are thrown into the river every day. The 158 tanneries at Lalbagh and Hazaribagh account for about 49 per cent of the 6,000 tonnes of wastes, according to the supply water agency.
The dumping of wastes over the years has led to a situation where the oxygen level in the river water became zero which experts say is the biological death of the river.
The state minister for environment and forest, Hasan Mahmud, on Friday said the government was committed to saving the Buriganga and other rivers flowing around the capital and the ministry had asked all enterprises polluting the river to take steps.
They have been given till June to set up effluent treatment plants, he said. ‘If they fail to set up the ETPs by the time, all their utility connections will be severed. They will be sued and fined, if required.’
The High Court acting on a writ petition on May 4 also issued a directive to the government to deploy policemen on the banks of the Buriganga so that no one could dump wastes in to the river.
The statement minister said he was not fully aware of the order as he had been out of the country.
A parliamentary panel on December 9, 2009 asked the authorities concerned to immediately shut all sewers flowing into the Buriganga and to adopt alternative waste management.
Both public and private entities are responsible for polluting the river, the committee observed, asking the Dhaka WASA to take appropriate measures to stop waste disposal into the Buriganga, water of which has turned pitch black because of dumping of human and industrial waste.
Hasan Mahmud said a task force had been formed and a number of decisions had been made in this regard. But he did not give any details.
Abu Naser said efforts to cleanse the Buriganga riverbed had become a futile exercise as the only waste treatment plant at Pagla in Dhaka can treat only 10 per cent of the wastes flowing into the river through sewers.
‘An increased amount of filth, sludge and human excreta has turned the water into black gel of a kind. Even rowing across the river has now become difficult for the bad smells,’ said Suman Nath, a university student.
The Dhaka WASA managing director said they were not solely responsible for polluting the Buriganga.

Courtesy of NewAge