[Urbanstudy] Back from the brink

Mon Jul 8 04:04:40 CDT 2013

Back from the brink
http://www.frontline.in/environment/back-from-the-brink/article4840745.ece?homepage=true
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   - [image: The Mookeneri lake before its restoration and
beautification.]<http://www.frontline.in/multimedia/dynamic/01495/FL12DRY_BED_1495223g.jpg>
   - [image: Garbage dumped on the
lakebed.]<http://www.frontline.in/multimedia/dynamic/01495/FL12GARBAGE_1495225g.jpg>
   - [image: The mounds that were created on the lakebed for the planting
   of saplings and for the creation of a bird sanctuary. This photograph was
   taken some time in
2010.]<http://www.frontline.in/multimedia/dynamic/01495/FL12MOOKENERI_2_1495226g.jpg>
   - [image: The mounds that were created on the lakebed for the planting
   of saplings and for the creation of a bird
sanctuary.]<http://www.frontline.in/multimedia/dynamic/01495/FL12_INTERMEDIATE_1495228g.jpg>
   - [image: Students doing their bit towards the setting up of a
   children's park at the lake. A 2012
photograph.]<http://www.frontline.in/multimedia/dynamic/01495/FL12_CLEANING_1495227g.jpg>
   - [image: The Mookeneri lake as it is
now.]<http://www.frontline.in/multimedia/dynamic/01495/FL12FINAL_RESULT_1495224g.jpg>

LATEST COMMENTS:
 Hat's off to you...
from: Kulwinder Singh
Jun 26, 2013 at 23:43 IST
MORE  <http://www.frontline.in/environment/back-from-the-brink/article4840745.ece?homepage=true#comments>
Citizens’ participation in the governance of public assets such as
waterbodies in the areas where they live is essential for their
preservation. The recent restoration of Salem’s Mookeneri lake is a good
example of this. By R. ILANGOVAN recently in Salem

IT was a stinking cesspool of raw domestic sewage and plastic waste. Even
the resident and migratory birds such as herons, cormorants and Brahmini
kites that had made it their nesting habitat for years had deserted it.
Farming activities carried out in the vicinity had to be abandoned. The
lake was dying. The once thriving 58-acre (one acre is 0.4 hectare)
Mookeneri lake in Salem city in Tamil Nadu, located right at the foot of
the Shevaroy hills in the Eastern Ghats, would have become extinct but for
the timely intervention of the Salem Citizens’ Forum (SCF), a motley group
of eco-sensitive citizens, which virtually pulled it back from the brink of
death. The lake today is a sparkling spread of water. The Mookeneri lake is
not the only victim of neglect in the city, which was once known for its
lakes and tanks. According to the 2011 Census, Tamil Nadu is the most
urbanised State in the country, with 48.45 per cent of its population
living in cities and towns. This urbanisation brings with it the bane of
pollution and encroachments and has left a significant number of
waterbodies gasping for breath and dying, while many others have “vanished,
leaving no trace”.

These dying and dead urban waterbodies prompted concerned citizens and
forum members in Salem, a tier-II town, where one has to dig a bore well to
an average depth of 800 feet (243 metres) to tap groundwater, to undertake
the unenviable endeavour of resuscitating at least three of the city’s
waterbodies, including the Mookeneri lake.

In fact, the SCF’s core team approached the then Collector, J.
Chandrakumar, with a detailed “mission revival” report. He was pleasantly
surprised with it as it was distinctly different from the traditional idea
of “mere excavation” and contained a comprehensive scientific and technical
package for the lake’s rehabilitation and for the formation of a bird
sanctuary, all with citizens’ involvement. “Our proposal impressed him. He
immediately asked the Water Resources Organisation [WRO], a wing of the
Public Works Department [PWD], Government of Tamil Nadu, which maintains
lakes and tanks, to find out the feasibility of handing it over to the
forum for ‘adoption’,” says V. Piyush Manush of the SCF.

The WRO, in a letter dated April 30, 2010, recommended that the forum
“adopt” the Mookeneri and Ismail Khan lakes, both located within the city,
besides the Gundukkal lake, for eco-restoration. The adoption agreement
allowed the SCF “to desilt, form mounds, plant saplings and also create
bird sanctuaries”. “The Collector’s faith in us was amazing. We have not
failed him,” says Meena Sethu, an educationist and an active forum member,
proudly. The rehabilitated Mookeneri lake today stands testimony to her
claims.

At the break of dawn on May 13, 2010, it was a “sight to behold” at the
Mookeneri lake. The first basket of the silt obtained from the dying and
dry bed of the lake, which incidentally was last full in 2002, was removed
amid shouts of joy from an enthusiastic crowd of volunteers, students and
the general public who spontaneously took part in the exercise of lake
resurgence. The job involved the digging of 45 circular trenches in the
lakebed, each a minimum of 5 m in depth and 5 m in diameter. The excavated
silt was “redeployed” to erect six-metre-high, 25-metre-diameter mounds.

The mounds in the lake resemble the tiny islands of an archipelago. The
trenches enabled the water to quickly percolate into the lakebed since the
thick layer of the silt that was removed had acted as a plastic film and
prevented percolation. Foremost, the mounds in the lake act as an effective
deterrent against resident predators such as cats and stray dogs, a
potential threat to nesting birds. Tree saplings were planted on the islets
while bamboo, turf grass, elephant grass, etc., were planted on the slopes
to aid soil retention. Medicinal plants were planted to keep the water
quality pristine. “We are constructing an amphitheatre and a pathway on its
bund for walkers and joggers,” says Meena Sethu. Since the trenches filled
up with water while the restoration work was still under way, the services
of a couple of coracles had to be summoned to get members of the team to
the mounds so that they could plant saplings. “Trees have grown to 20 feet
high and the birds also returned. The works were completed in November and
the lake, by December, had started receiving water. It was
‘once-in-a-life-time joy’ when you saw the lake brimming with crystal clear
water,” Anand Kumar, another member of the core team, says proudly.

The team’s work has not disturbed the rights of the small number of
ayacutdars. The revived lake has also become a place of attraction for
local people, who throng there during weekends. The SCF has taken up the
restoration of the Ismail Khan lake. The success of the “Mookeneri model”
has inspired many. The residents of Ammapet in Salem city approached the
forum to help them rejuvenate the sprawling Kumaragiri lake in their
locality. On March 28, 2012, the Salem Municipal Corporation passed a
resolution permitting the people and the forum to “adopt” the lake.
Coimbatore has also not hesitated to adopt the “Salem model”. The Residents
Awareness Association of Coimbatore (RAAC), in association with Siruthuli,
a pioneer voluntary organisation working in the field of conservation of
waterbodies, has taken up the revival of the PWD’s 320-acre Ukkadam Big
Tank.

The SCF members have had their share of frustrations and failures too.
Bureaucratic inertia has been an irritating impediment to the restoration
process. They could not complete the task at the Gundukkal lake in
Theevattipatti village near Salem. “With the assistance of the local
people, we were able to take up the restoration. But, unfortunately, the
officials were reluctant to remove encroachments. The work remains
unfinished today,” Piyush says. Encroachments and pollution, both domestic
and industrial, play spoilsport with waterbodies. Activists, hence, urge
the State to strictly enforce the provisions of various State and Central
legislations to protect waterbodies. “We have lost 50 per cent of the
waterbodies we had some two decades ago. Urban waterbodies like the ones in
Salem are the main victims,” says Nitya Jacob of the Centre for Science and
Environment, a New Delhi-based non-profitable organisation. “Unless
encroachments are cleared from lakes and channels, waterbodies across the
country can never be saved,” he says.

The Chennai-based activist Jayshree Vencatesan of Care Earth, a
biodiversity research organisation, endorses these views. She and her team
have identified 474 waterbodies in the greater Chennai area, including the
Pallikaranai marsh, that are gasping for breath because of waste dumping.
“We are trying to influence the government to include local citizens in the
preservation of waterbodies at the policy level,” she says. Jayshree points
out that many have been classified as wasteland in government records.
“They should be redefined specially as waterbodies so that they can be
saved from encroachments,” she says.

Piyush and his team say that it seems to be an eternal battle to keep the
revived waterbodies safe from “human predators” such as polluters and
encroachers, mainly the land mafia. One day, the entire Mookeneri lake was
found polluted because of the immersion of idols made of plaster of Paris
and toxic dye. “We could not see even a single bird. There was an eerie
silence and the lake water resembled a cesspit. We were crestfallen and
felt like crying,” says Piyush. Taking moral responsibility for this act of
pollution, he “surrendered” before a Salem court on September 25, 2012. “I
construed it as negligence on my part, which is an abetment to the crime
[here pollution]. Hence, I chose to surrender,” he said in justification of
his petition. The magistrate duly rejected it. However, the incident sent a
strong message to those who polluted the lake.

“A square foot of land in the lake’s neighbourhood costs Rs.3,500.
Anti-socials had even attempted to drain out its water. They want the lake
to remain dead. We have been resisting them,” Meena Sethu says. “This is an
extremely critical initiative. On the one hand, lakes are ecologically
important for groundwater restoration and supporting diverse activities in
urban areas, which have been ‘concretised’. On the other, the restoration
process connects people to nature,’’ says the activist Kanchi Kohli of the
Pune-based environmental group Kalpavriksh. Activists, she points out, are
working for the revival of waterbodies in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune. It
is high time that lakes got their space in the urban environment. Beyond
citizens’ role, government agencies must also be involved in their revival
and maintenance, she remarks.

“We have no external source of funding. Neither any outside agency nor the
State has funded us [for the lake revival works]. We collect contributions
from people and stakeholders. The contribution received from each donor is
listed and updated in our website and each donor is sent a weekly mail
regarding the progress with all the details of the resources raised and
spent,” says Piyush. Citizens’ participation in the governance of public
assets, such as waterbodies, in the areas where they live, activists say,
is essential for their preservation.
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