CHENNAI: Chennai loves to celebrate its culture, heritage and history. We have over 50 heritage tours around the city, which receive enormous traction from tourists and city dwellers alike. The historic city has structures and systems which date back to the 17th century. A coastal city with three major river mouths that connect to the sea, water management has always been an important part of Chennai’s geographical planning. The age-old water management system still exists, along with the tanks, canals and marshes that were strategically placed to tackle most water problems. But the water crisis remains a puzzling and pressing issue. On a recent water tour, Nityanand Jayaraman, environmental journalist and co-founder of the Vettiver Collective, discussed and articulated why the current water management
system has taken a step back.
Choked and clogged
The group of eight gathered at Besant Nagar Beach on a cool, breezy morning. Members of the Vettiver Collective, and Adam Sobel, physicist and climatologist, began the tour at the Adyar river. Lined with excavators, work was currently in progress to deepen the river bed to plant mangroves.
Our little party excitedly began taking pictures of the scene in front of us. Heaps of mud lined areas into the river, which were cordoned off for the mangroves. It was low tide and water had collected in puddles, with only a thin stream of water making its way to the ocean. A grimmer picture, however, was about to be painted for us further into the tour.
Our next stop was at the Adambakkam lake, which falls on National Highway 2. “The geography of the place is such that rainwater is supposed to flow straight into the Adambakkam lake which is the beginning of a line of four connected reservoirs,” said Jayaraman. The once-massive lake, now barely covers 100 square metres. Plastic waste and algae line its edges, and garbage visibly floats at the surface. “It’s at a higher point than the rest of the tanks and is connected to the Keelkattalai lake via a series of underground canals. Unfortunately, encroachments at multiple places have blocked the canal which stops the flow of water and causes it to clog in certain places. The area is more prone to flooding because of this,” he said.
We watched the residential and commercial buildings alike skirt the highway. At around 7.30 am, commuters working in IT companies near Pallikaranai and Old Mahabalipuram Road, had begun their hour-long journey to their offices. Soon enough, we were stuck in traffic, the sun beating down on us. We almost rolled out of the car as we arrived at the next destination, the Pallavaram lake. “As you can see, this too is a reservoir and was built over 200 years ago.
When water overflows at the Adambakkam reservoir it flows down, via the canal, into the Pallavaram lake,” Jayaraman said. Despite being allocated a budget of `1,490 lakh for restoration, a thin layer of grey toxic waste lines the surface of the lake. Like the Adambakkam lake, plastic waste and garbage float at the surface. An excavator stands at one side with dunes of freshly dug earth, around it. An unfinished concrete canal juts out of the ground, “The Greater Chennai Corporation is planning to build an underground system of canals through which excess water can drain from this reservoir to the next without flooding the structures in between,” he said.
Flood zone
We continued down the NH2 to the Keelkattalai tank which also connects to the Keelkattalai marshlands. The quaint little lake reminded us of the 2015 floods, with an abandoned kachcha (temporary) house partially submerged in water. Nature had taken over and plants and palmyra trees had grown around the waterbody. Storks washed their feathers as vehicles honked on the road which overlooked the lake.
“The marshlands originally panned out across 250 square kilometres and were perfectly placed to store all the excess water that ran from the three tanks,” he said, gesturing towards the reed-ridden marshland, which now only covers between 70 to 150 square metres. Houses, schools and commercial buildings have visibly encroached the marshland, making them most prone to flooding. “The place floods even at the slightest bit of rain because we haven’t left any space for the water to accumulate or run off into,” he explained.
The tour ended at the Pallikaranai marshland, the largest storage provision for freshwater in the city. Tall buildings on stilts were built on the marshland. They had high boundary walls built, in the hope that it will stop the water from flowing in during a flood. The massive marsh has hospitals and schools built on it that had experienced severe flooding during the disaster in 2015. “Patients and children had to be evacuated on boats that went in and out of the first floor of the hospital,” Jayaraman added.
Historic monuments and other heritage structures have been admired for the planning and craftsmanship they reflect. The city also had excellently planned road and waterways which are now being misused and encroached. Uninformed decisions taken by those in-charge, have resulted in major risk-laden areas that are not equipped to survive another disaster. The water tour painted a perfect picture of what has been going wrong when it comes to geographical management, while simultaneously highlighting the problem areas.