Delhi's Interceptor Sewage Project

The Delhi government plans to add another 50 kilometers of sewers at a cost of Rs. 1950 crore along the three major drains to intercept sewage from 150 minor drains, from where the sewage will be passed on to pumping stations and finally transported to sewage treatment plants for treatment.

But according to recent studies of CSE(Centre For Science and Environment) and there article its just a wastage of money.And according to CSE, the river will continue to remain dead, despite the massive amounts of money being spent.So here i just wanted to briefly focus on there article, so that we must come to know why they think such about this big budget project.

According to CSE & there article: More than Rs. 1500 crore has already been spent in trying to clean the Yamunas 22-km stretch through Delhi. Money aside, the interceptor plan is full of gaps. The project is not based on any authentic estimates of the amount of sewage that is generated in the city. It completely overlooks similar, expensive failures elsewhere as in Agra and Varanasi. Even if forcefully pushed through, the river will need millions of litres of freshwater to dilute the intercepted and treated sewage; water that is just not available.

PROJECT's DETAIL:
Government wanted to tap drains carrying sewage from colonies not connected to the city sewers. Interceptor sewers to be used for tapping is seen by the government as a temporary solution to the problem of untreated water reaching the Yamuna.The government plans to lay sewers throughout the city in the long run.

The project is a toned down version of a Rs 3,150-crore proposal first mooted by the Delhi Jal Board in 2006. It involves laying 50 km of interceptors, 2-3 metres in diameter, to intercept 150 small drains discharging into three major drains in the capital—Najafgarh, Supplementary and Shahadra. The three drains contribute 70 per cent of the discharge of 3,600 million litres a day (MLD) of sewage into the Yamuna.

Another 13 drains will be tapped into sewers under rehabilitation. Four drains including one near the Sarita Vihar bridge carrying about 690 MLD finds no mention in the plan, which has been cleared without undertaking surveys directed by the supreme court.

The intercepted waste will be taken to a pumping station and then to a sewage treatment plant (STP). At places, the route is very circuitous. For example, sewage from a drain near the Yamuna Vihar S T P would be sent to a distant pumping station, when pumping directly to the plant would have been prudent since, each kilometre of sewer costs almost Rs 20 crore. Also in monsoons the wastewater will bypass the interceptors into the Yamuna.

Delhi’s STPs can reduce sewage’s biological oxygen demand to only 20mg/l (if they work); 3 mg/l will make the river fit for bathing. So the treated water will need more than six times dilution. But where’s the water? The Yamuna lacks freshwater almost nine months a year.

WASTAGE OF MONEY:

• Rs 1,950 crore for interceptors is in addition to Rs 387 crore under the Yamuna Action Plan II and Rs 1,500 crore spent on Yamuna cleaning in Delhi. But interceptors have failed in Agra, Varanasi and other places.
• They will not work in Delhi as well because even if all the city’s sewage (3,600 M L D) is intercepted and treated the river would require 24,000 MLD of freshwater for diluting it to make it fit for bathing, at a conservative estimate.
• Sewage generated in Delhi is increasing. Water supply management is no solution. More freshwater used means more sewage and more money for treatment. Manage demand.
• Augment and optimize current STPs. Treatment at source reduces pumping costs. At places drains can be developed into treatment units. Treat residual wastes at the mouth of the river.
• Re-use effluents and ensure treated effluent is not mixed with untreated effluent before it flows to the river. Have policies to promote safe re-use so that the river has freshwater.

Source: www.cseindia.org
Compiled By: Saurav Chakraborty

Advertisement Space:

Your Ad Here

Your Ad Here

Is global warming destroying Mount Everest?

In 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first people to successfully summit Mount Everest, the highest peak on Earth. Now their sons are warning the world about the damage that global warming is doing to the mountain, one of world's most spectacular natural wonders. Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing, in an interview with British newspaper The Independent, lamented that global warming is radically altering the appearance, ecology and climate of Mount Everest and the surrounding area of Tibet. Inaction, they warn, could lead to an environmental disaster.

Peter Hillary said that base camp at Everest has slid from an elevation of 5,320 meters, when his father climbed Everest, to 5,280 meters and continues to sink each year. The younger Hillary, who has scaled Everest twice, also warned of the effects of glacial lakes bursting. Glacial lakes that fill up with too much water can breach their natural barriers -- which themselves are frequently made of ice -- unleashing a massive flood. (We recently wrote about a lake in Chile that disappeared because of the same effect.)

In the case of Mount Everest and the surrounding area, tens of thousands of people may be at risk. Forty thousand Sherpas live at the base of the mountain. Already there are 9,000 glacial lakes in the Himalayas, 200 of which face possible glacial outburst floods. A similar flood in 1985 created a torrent of 10 million cubic meters of water. Most of a village, including a local power station, was swept away, with some people and debris ending up 55 miles away. Some lakes now exist that are 20 times the size of the one that burst in 1985. When talking to The Independent, Peter Hillary compared the effects of a glacial outburst flood to an atomic bomb.

If current patterns keep up, most of the glaciers covering the Himalayas could melt within the next 50 years; 80 percent will be gone within 30 years. Some of these glaciers are three miles long. Mount Everest would then appear as an enormous peak of mostly exposed rock with limited areas of ice. The glacier used as Hillary and Norgay's original base camp has moved three miles in 20 years while others have disappeared entirely. Overall, glaciers in the area receded 74 meters in 2006, up from 42 meters a year between 1961 and 2001. The effects are already pronounced: climbers are warned to be on the lookout for rockslides and avalanches caused by increased snowmelt.

Beyond the effects on the immediate area, the glaciers of the Himalayas have worldwide importance. These glaciers contain 40 percent of the world's fresh water, feed nine large rivers and provide one-sixth of the world's drinking water. The fluctuations in the local water supply have caused desertification in some areas, which makes it difficult for farmers to irrigate their crops. Large rivers have appeared in some areas where they did not exist before (and at the expense of other streams).

The global warming claims of Hillary and Norgay are supported by a climate study conducted by an international team of scientists in association with the French Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The study, published in early 2007, confirmed that global warming is adversely affecting Mount Everest. Additionally, many Tibetan people, Sherpas, guides and frequent visitors to the area relate stories of glaciers and ice features such as serac forests -- huge columns of ice formed by glaciers -- disappearing or retreating to higher altitudes.

Compiled by: Saurav Chakraborty

The Baltic Sea is in serious trouble

Each year over 1 million tonnes of nutrients leak into the waters of the Baltic Sea, causing environmental damage to one of the world's most threatened marine ecosystems.
These nutrients – used in farming around the region - lead to blue-green algal blooms, which kill other marine life and make it difficult for people to go near the water, scaring off tourists and local residents.

But instead of stopping this pollution, governments are actually causing and adding to the problem by handing out large subsidies to intensive industrial farming in the region.

Every year, over €10 billion of European taxpayers' money is provided through agricultural subsidies without setting strict enough environmental measures to guard against nutrient overload.

If urgent action is not taken the Baltic Sea could be irrevocably damaged.

The Baltic is the youngest sea on our planet, emerging from the retiring ice masses only some 10-15,000 years ago. Due to its specific geographical, climatic and oceanographic features, it is highly sensitive to human activities which are taking place both at sea and the surrounding area, which is home to some 85 million people.

The algal blooms in the Baltic Sea are caused by a process called eutrophication. This happens when a body of water receive excess nutrients that stimulate excessive plant growth. This plant growth, often called an algal bloom, eventually decomposes and reduces dissolved oxygen in the water, which can kill other marine life that depend on the oxygen for their survival.

Compiled by: Saurav Chakraborty
Advertisement Space:

How can a lake simply disappear in Chile?

Sometime in May 2007, a glacial lake in southern Chile disappeared. Chilean surveyors reported in March that the lake was its usual size, 100 feet deep and covering an area around five acres. Located in Bernardo O'Higgins Park, in the southern Andes mountains, the lake is (was) rarely visited and didn't even have a name. When Chilean forestry officials arrived, they were surprised to find nothing more than "chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure" where the unnamed lake had once been. Five miles away, a river that was once more than 130 feet wide barely flowed. What could cause such a massive disturbance to make an entire lake and much of a river disappear?

Global warming seems to be the knee-jerk response lately whenever a dramatic environmental change is observed. Indeed, global warming is a big concern for lakes, as many bodies of water are experiencing receding water levels due to a combination of low rainfall and high temperatures. In the Magallanes province, where the lake is located, the Tempano and Bernardo glaciers are shrinking, and both of those glaciers contributed water to the lake. Experts like Gino Casassa and Andres Rivera, both glaciologists, point to global warming as the cause of the glaciers' melting. So global warming was immediately considered as a possible cause, but when investigating the lake, scientists considered several other possibilities.

One theory scientists considered was that an earthquake in the area opened a fissure in the earth, which sucked down the lake. Southern Chile experiences hundreds of small earthquakes a year, and a fairly large tremor was detected on April 21. The fissure observed in the empty lake bed could have provided an outlet for the lake water to escape, much like a stopper being pulled from a sink.

A second possibility draws in part on global warming and the melting of glaciers. Glacial lakes often develop behind natural dams called moraines, which are made of ice. Once a moraine is broken, whether by an avalanche, earthquake, warming or other event, water bursts through and the lake sometimes drains.

It took scientists several weeks before they were able to discover the answer because the site is very remote -- about 4,900 feet above sea level and 1,250 miles south of Chile's capital, Santiago. But in early July 2007, scientists got their answer.

An investigation has revealed that too much water was the problem. The melting Tempano and Bernardo glaciers filled the lake beyond the crater's capacity. The increased pressure broke the lake's moraine through which water flowed out, later ending up in the ocean. The lake is refilling as the chunks of ice on the lake bed melt, though Chilean scientists pointed out that global warming did have a serious effect. Glaciers naturally melt and reform, but warming is causing the Tempano and Bernardo glaciers to melt more than they should..

For some lakes, rapidly appearing or disappearing is part of a natural process. The lake in Chile did not exist 30 years ago, though, again, global warming is likely affecting the process. Some lakes, including many in Alaska and Florida's Lake Jackson, go through a similar process regularly, disappearing and reappearing during certain seasons, or from year-to-year or decade-to-decade.

Compiled by: Saurav Chakraborty
Advertisement Space:

Environment at Home: Let's treat every day as if it were Earth Day

Back in 1970, setting aside one day for Earth Day was probably a good start.

Over the next few years, Congress passed the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, and established the Environmental Protection Agency.

An oil embargo sparked research into conservation and alternative energy sources.

While we have made progress over the decades — some of the most polluted areas in the country have been cleaned up and we've been made more aware of our daily impact on the planet — it seems the challenges facing us after 37 consecutive Earth Days are more daunting than ever.

Many folks might see Earth Day as the one day a year when they might pick up some litter, or take a walk instead of a drive. I'd like to see more people like my neighbor, who sees Earth Day as a day off. He almost always walks or rides his bike around town and when he does, he picks up trash – pounds of it every day. If you aren't paying attention, you might have thought the "Give a hoot – Don't pollute" campaign took care of litter. But it didn't. So on Earth Day, my neighbor lets everyone else have a day of taking care of the trash.

But today, rest assured, he's back to work. There are many ways each of us can help the environment every day. Pick at least one and do it every day. Whether it's gathering litter, walking more, using less water or writing letters to your members of Congress — just do something.

Here are just a few tips for around the house:

• Use the microwave to cook small meals. (It uses less power than an oven.)

• Purchase "Green Power" for your home's electricity. (Contact your power supplier to see where and if it is available.)

• Have leaky air conditioning and refrigeration systems repaired.

• Look for the WaterSense label to identify water-efficient products and programs. The WaterSense label indicates that these products and programs meet water-efficiency and performance criteria. WaterSense labeled products will perform well, help save money, and encourage innovation in manufacturing.

• Take short showers instead of tub baths.

• Keep drinking water in the refrigerator instead of letting the faucet run until the water is cool.

• Scrape, rather than rinse, dishes before loading into the dishwasher; wash only full loads.

• Water the lawn or garden during the coolest part of the day (early morning is best).

• Water plants differently according to what they need. Check with your local extension service or nurseries for advice.

• Buy permanent items instead of disposables.

• Buy and use only what you need.

• Buy products with less packaging.

• Repair items as much as possible.

• Use durable coffee mugs.

• Use cloth napkins or towels.

• Clean out juice bottles and use them for water.

• Use empty jars to hold leftover food.

• Reuse boxes.

• Purchase refillable pens and pencils.

• Participate in a paint collection and reuse program.

Compiled by:Saurav Chakraborty
Sponsored by:

Your Ad Here

Each computer leaves a toxic trail

>> Computers, the hub of modern business and lifestyle, are considered to be the vanguard of clean technology that has freed us from the use of paper and unnecessary transportation. By default, the industry that produces computer is also perceived to be clean. However, a un study reveals that each computer at its birth uses at least 240 kg fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals and 1.5 tonnes of water-more than the weight of a rhinoceros

>> Behind every sleek global brand of digital desire, farmers and residents around component plants face the severe effects of toxic residue from the manufacturing plants in hich they are produced

>> The three major sectors of this industry are:
* Printed wiring board (pwb) manufacture
* Semiconductor chip manufacture
* Component assembly: facilities involved in the assembly of computers and other electrical devices

>> Far away from the glitzy headquarters of these brands, pwbs are largely produced in China and Thailand, while semiconductor chips are produced in Mexico and Phillipines

>> A chip of 2 grammes uses 30 kg of materials, including water, a large part of which is turned into highly toxic waste

>> Input for pwbs:
* Copper compound, flame retardants (tetrabromobisphenol), photoinitiators (thioxanthones)
* Epoxy resins, formaldehyde, chelating chemicals (a chelate is composed of a metal ion and a chelating agent.


A substance whose molecules can form several bonds to a single metal ion)
* Metallic solders (lead-tin or lead-free alloys, nickel, gold)

>> Input for semiconductors:
* Silicon, gallium, germanium, hafnium
* Hydrogen peroxide, nitric acid, sulphuric acid
* Arsenic, boron, antimony, phosphorous

>> Wastes impact groundwater:
* A pwb facility in Thailand contained chlorinated volatile organic chemicals, a group of chemicals widely used as solvents and reported as contaminants in groundwater
* Nonylphenol ethoxylate and a range of nonylphenols, persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances, used as surfactants, were found at a Mexican site


Waste and its health impact (common to pwbs, semiconductors and component assembly)

>> Polybrominated diphenyl ethers, widely used as brominated flame-retardants: endocrine disruptors, interfere with growth hormones and sexual development, affect immune system

>> Phthalates, widely used as plasticisers (softeners) in plastics: They are found in air and dust and are toxic. Affects liver and kidney at higher doses. Runs the risk of affecting food chain through crops. Also affects proteome formation and physiology and morphology of some crops during growth

>> Chlorinated solvents: Carcinogenic, affects central nervous system, liver and kidney. Affects skin, eyes, mucous membrane

>> High levels of heavy metals such as copper and nickel: pwb manufacturing processes use water-soluble copper compounds that can have serious impact on aquatic organisms and reduction in growth and fertility rates as well as increased morality. Some nickel compounds are toxic. They can have gastrointestinal and cardiac effects.

About 5 per cent of the population are nickel sensitive and can suffer at far lower doses. Some nickel compounds are carcinogenic as well.

(Source: Cutting Edge Contamination, Greenpeace, February 2007)

Sponsored By:

Your Ad Here

Climate change may have killed captive Vulture babies

Unusual weather and temperature changes are said to have played a role in the death of the wprld’s first vulture chicks born in captivity at Pinjore near Chandigarh on Janaury 1 and 5.Though the rare Oriental White-backed Vulture parents tried hard, the pair did not survive a month.”The parents fed them properly and the postmortem did not indicate infections told by experts. Experts says, “The climate and temperature fluctuations played a possible role in the deaths.”

The chicks died on January 12th and 30th of this year.Conservationists are increasingly worrying that climate change is confusing wildlife, sometimes fatally.Few weeks ago, 17 rare loons froze to death in New Hamphshire, UK, and conservationists blamed the warm weather for confusing the threatened bird species that normally flies to the ocean for winter.

In Pinjore, where closed circuit television cameras monitor the vultures had noticed that January’s erratic temperature fluctuations seemed to affect the parents brooding habits to keep the chicks warm.

“Vulture nestlings have only one downy feather coat and depend on their parents brooding,” says experts. But some January mornings here were either freezing or warm at 15 degrees Celsius. Sometimes the maximum would touch 30 degrees.”

Even in the wild, vulture nestlings have a low survival rate, so this captive breeding was hailed as a milestone since India has lost over 97 percent vultures since the nineties. But the loss is not yet a disaster. At the conservation centre, nine vulture pairs are now living in and house hunting for locations to set up nests

Source: Hindustan Times
Compiled By: Saurav Chakraborty

Pollutants change male frogs into females

Frogs that started life as male tadpoles were changed in an experiment into females by oestrogen like pollutants similar to those found in the environment, according to a new study. The results may shed light on at least one reason that up to a third of frog specie around the world are threatened with extinction, suggests the study, set to appear in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in May.
In a laboratory at Uppsala University in Sweden, two species of frogs were exposed to levels of oestrogen similar to those detected in natural bodies of water in Europe, the United States and Canada. The results were startling: whereas the percentage of females in two control groups was under 50 percent- not unusual among frogs-the sex sex ratio in three pairs of groups maturing in water dosed with different levels of oestrogen were significantly skewed.
Even tadpoles exposed to the weakest concentration of the two groups, twice as likely to become females.The population of the two groups receiving the heaviest dose of estrogen became 95 per cent female in one case, and 100 per cent in the other.
Pesticides and other industrial chemicals have the ability to act like oestrogen in the body,” said co- author Cecilia Berg, a researcher in environmental toxicology. “We see dramatic changes by exposing the frogs to a single substances In nature there could belots of other compounds acting together.”


Source: Hindustan Times & AFP
Compiled by: Saurav Chakraborty

Sunderbans Warms Up

As the midday sun beats down on the world’s largest tiger reserve,fisherman in a boat slowly manoeuvre their way through the mangrove forests fringing the Bay of Bengal.Twenty years ago,the fishermen said,they would never have been able to venture through the mangrove creek in eastern India to catch fish,too fearful of the tigers that stalked the area.But the mangrove cover is sparse now and the big cats have moved on in search of food.

Wildlife experts say rising sea levels and coastal erosion caused by global warming are steadily shrinking the mangroves of Sunderbans, threatening the survival of the endangered tigers.

“We are very concerned about the erosion level in tiger habitat,and we plan to increase mangrove cover in core areas to protect the tiger,” said Kanti Ganguly, minister for the Sunderbans in West Bengal.

The Sunderbans, once home to 500 tigers in the late 1960s, may only shelter between 250 and 270 tigers now, wildlife officials say, although the Indian Statistical Institute recently suggested the numbers could be significantly lower. The Tigers of the Sunderbans regularly swim between islands in search of food and sometimes stray into villages.It is the world’s largest mangrove reserve and one of the most unique ecosystems in South Asia, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

But as sea levels rise, two islands have disappeared and others are vulnerable.The destruction of the mangroves has also adversely affected numbers of estuarine crocodiles, fish and big crabs, said Shakti Ranjan Banerjee, wildlife expert. That could leave the big cats hungry.

“We are worried about the tiger’s prey base and also the fact that the tiger habitat is shrinking due to rising sea levels,” Pradeep Vyas, the special chief conservator of forests, said.”But you cannot fight nature and must accept that the islands could submerge one day,” he said.

As sea levels rise, mangroves have been overexposed to salt water. Many plants have lost their red and green colours and are more like bare twigs, exposing tigers to poachers who hunt them for their skin and bones. Also, tigresses now have fewer places to hide their curbs from adult males,who seek to kill them in order to stem competition in the group, consevationists warn.

There were about 40,000 tigers in India a century ago, but decades of poaching and depletion of their natural habitat have cut their numbers to 3,700. some experts say the total could be as low as 1,200.



Source: Hindustan Times
Compiled By: Saurav Chakraborty

No Energy Security Without Climate Security

With oil and gas prices at record highs and fers mounting over future supplies,global energy security will take centre stage at last year's meeting of the group of Eight(G8) industialized nations.As heads of states meet in Russia-one of the world's largest energy exporters and a country benefiting from record energy profits-they will no doubt call for greater cooperationto ensure that global economy is not harmed by unstable oil prices and political instability in many energy producing nations.

Earlier,G8 leader touted climate change as a top priority,but this upcoming meeting in St Petersburg appears set to ignore the issue in order to focus on securing energy supplies.

But there will be no real energy security without a stable and secure environment,particularly in an environment that is being threatned by the ill effects of climate change.

As climate change is the single most important environmental,if not global challenge that we are facing today,we need a plan.Not just any plan,but a comprehensive climate and energy security plan akin to the Marshall Plan after World War 2 that helped rebuild Europe-a plan that attempts tp rstore the Earth's fragile ecosystem by cutting polluting gas emissions and dramatically improving energy efficiency.

Evry litre of oil or gas,every bit of coal that we humans burn,adds to the increasing level of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions,loke carbon dioxide,which is a byproduct of burning this fuels.About 23 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide are spewed into the Earth's atmosphere every year-most of it by western industrialized countries.This build-up of Carbon dioxide and other gases are contributing to global warming.

Scientific consensus shows that we face grave risks if global temperature rise 2 degree celsius above those of pre-industrial times.Many around the world have already had a taste of what this would bring with temperatures up just 0.7 degree celsius--more frequent and severe storms and heat waves,drought,melting glaciers and rising sea levels.Such events can have immense security and economic implications,including crop failures in key food producing areas,border disputes over resources,mass movement of "environmental"refugees,and the spending of billions of dollars needed to cope with natural disasters.

To help mitigate these risks,we need effective policies to reduce global warming before carbon emissions increase to such a point that they become too difficult to reverse.We need a resounding commitment by governmens at the G8 Summit to energy efficiency,conservation measures and renewable energies.

Compiled by:Saurav Chakraborty