Save the wetlands, save the city

This article first appeared in the CAG Souvenir 2005 and was reproduced in Madras Musings, November 16, 2005. Nothing has changed since then – we still suffer by not acting.

Wetlands play a very important role as natural ecosystems. Tragically, especially when they are located close to cities and growing urban agglomerations such as Chennai, where the demand for land in terms of housing and other needs increases, they are seen as areas with potential for land development.

This is so especially when the demand for new land for development becomes urgent. This, coupled with the rising land prices, more often fuelled by speculators than real, is when both the state and private entities start looking for new land can be found if not “created”.

When there are no genuine workable land-use plans on the part of the Government and there is no pressure to put new lands on the market, wetlands, characterised as swamps or marshes, are seen as ideal new land for ‘development’. If to this you add the fact that ‘development’ activity, whether it be in the form of new house construction or old houses having to be torn down to give way to new apartment complexes, needs space to dump ‘wastes’, then there is also pressure to look for land-fill sites. Here again, these ‘useless’ swamps and marshes becoming ‘value’ first, as land fill sites, then in becoming new urban space to meet the increasing demand for land. This kind of negative valuation of swamps or marshes does not take into consideration their value, even economically. These swamps and marshes have been important natural systems in the past and have their use in the future as water and flood regulators. Not to mention their immense potential to add other value, including many economic benefits to the society once they can be maintained and allowed to regenerate in their original state, as wetlands. For instance, the wetlands act as silt traps and in the process contribute to an amazingly rich and diverse aquatic ecosystem, which, in turn, contributes to and attracts avian diversity, both local and migratory, to the wetlands. It may be useful to also consider the salience of the Chennai swamps, marshes or wetlands in the overall geological and ecological position of Tamil Nadu. The peninsular part of the Indian subcontinent is geologically in a tilt sloping eastwards, causing many of the rivers of peninsular India to flow eastwards. It is against this geological and ecological historical background that we should understand the network of wetlands and man-made tanks, which are part of an extensive natural and man-made system to store the flows and act like a vast catchment network for the water, especially closer to the coast. These wetlands and tanks not only store the surface water flows during the monsoon but also serve to charge the groundwater aquifers and serve as flood control mechanisms. Not to recognise the role played by these wetlands, along with the waterways, like the Cooum, the Adyar and the Buckingham Canal, and the vast network of tanks, in terms of recharging groundwater and managing flood flows would be folly, resulting in many imponderable consequences, if heavy rain or flooding were to happen.

Wetland & urban planning

A view of the Pallikaranai marsh showing its detioriating condition.

After the heavy rains in Mumbai, Tehelka (October 1, 2005) looked at the consequences in terms of other metros and arrived at the view that such rains would be disastrous for cities like Bangalore and Chennai. Tehelka also pointed out, “The systematic destruction of about 1,000 acres of the city’s mangrove cover deprived Mumbai of its natural flood barrier and salt trap. The horror stories in terms of urban planning don’t end here. A World Bank-funded urban transport project has dumped debris from the hillsides onto the wetlands.” Doesn’t this sound familiar, especially if you think of the Adyar San Thomé Greenways Road wetlands or what is happening and has happened in the Velachery and Pallikaranai areas. CAG tried to stop through public interest litigations massive housing projects of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board in the low-lying areas and lakebeds of Velachery, Ambattur, Nolambur, Chitlapakkam and Kakkalur. These ‘projects’ had received financial approval from the World Bank and HUDCO. Despite all CAG’s efforts, the Court refused to interfere in the matter. Another PIL related to the plans to convert the wetlands adjacent to the Greenways Road into a memorial for Dr. Ambedkar, while actually creating real estate around the memorial for other uses. The Court judgment accepted (by and large) CAG’s objections and the order itself, which allowed the Memorial but halted the other proposed activities, was unique in many ways. Following up on the Court order would also possibly show how wetlands, whose inherent natural value and wealth is not clearly perceived by the ordinary citizen, can also become locations that add value, including economic, to the city by becoming a place of natural heritage, attracting visitors and offering the urban dweller a peaceful refuge where he can enjoy nature and oxygenate his polluted and battered urban body. Chennai has to recognise the extraordinary economic potential and wealth that it has in terms of its natural wetlands, both within the city and on what were once its peripheries. According to the same Tehelka report quoted earlier, “Chennai receives an annual rainfall of 120 cm. In November 1985, when the city recorded 66.5 cm rain in three days, many areas were inundated.” The loss to public sector companies was estimated to be Rs.  l7 crore in 1985. Surely, if such a scenario were to repeat itself, the loss now would be manifold, considering that the city is pushing itself heavily as an attractive destination for IT companies. This is not to create any sense of panic, but to realistically assess how a coastal city should use its natural design to manage potential natural disasters and not pay a higher cost by destroying the inherent values contained in its natural setting and design.

The road ahead

These natural assets can in fact be turned to Chennai’s advantage. Seen from the point of view of the geological tilt of the peninsula, Madras is only four feet above mean sea level. This means that the role of the sea during high tide in flushing and cleaning its canals and river network as well as its wetlands is very important, as in the case of the San Thomé-Adyar wetlands connected to the sea near Foreshore Estate, which is now blocked by housing and other obstructions. Whoever enters Chennai especially from the west and north, first comments on the rotten smell that signals they have reached Chennai. This is because of the way the waterbodies and related spaces have been misused and systematically destroyed, making them open sewers rather than spaces of natural cleansing that they were originally meant to be.

Anybody crossing Foreshore Estate cannot escape this foul smell either, especially as the dry season approaches. There are boards indicating that these wetland areas are part of the Forest Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu. If the Forest Department were to take the initiative and create productive, public-private partnerships, these wetlands can be restored. They can also take genuine pride in removing the stigma of Chennai being referred to as the ‘Smelling City’.

Other than these gains, it is also useful to consider that once the beauty of wetlands is restored and they are on their way to ecological recovery, they can become areas of rich natural heritage. Our generation, which by standing silent and passive while this rich natural wealth of our city is being destroyed and which has allowed these valuable natural ecosystems to be completely obliterated, still has a chance to repay its debts in terms of its obligations to future generations, by joining hands to repair, rejuvenate and ecologically recover the remaining wetlands in the city.

Cities like Singapore, which once followed the kind of destructive urban development that we are now blindly engaged in, have now discovered not only the folly of such a path but the new wealth and treasures they have gained by working towards the recovery of their ecological assets. Singapore is now restoring its wetlands and river routes, literally making the river flow, and offering these as new tourist attractions. If we in Chennai were actually far-sighted and truly savvy about the future, we would learn our lessons from cities like Singapore. Will we? Or will we copy the mistakes of other cities in terms of a urban development, by failing to understand how to successfully build on a city’s natural wealth and its natural assets? – (Courtesy: CAG Souvenir 2005)

Environmentalists lament

The case of the Pallikaranai marshlands, which drains water from a 250-square-kilometre catchment, is telling. Not long ago, it was a 50-square-kilometre water sprawl in the southern suburbs of Chennai. Now, it is 4.3 square kilometres – less than a tenth of its original. The growing finger of a garbage dump sticks out like a cancerous tumour in the northern part of the marshland. Two major roads cut through the waterbody with few pitifully small culverts that are not up to the job of transferring the rain water flows from such a large catchment. The edges have been eaten into by institutes like the National Institute of Ocean Technology. Ironically, NIOT is an accredited consultant to prepare Environmental Impact Assessments on various subjects, including on the implications of constructing on waterbodies.

Other portions of this wetland have been sacrificed to accommodate the IT corridor. But water offers no exemption to elite industry. Unmindful of the lofty intellectuals at work in the glass and steel buildings of the software parks, rainwater goes by habit to occupy its old haunts, bringing the back-office work of American banks to a grinding halt. Courtesy: Chennai floods are not a natural disaster – they’ve been created by unrestrained construction.
– Nityanand Jayaraman

Lessons still not learnt

The Tamil Nadu government said that the floods were simply due of the intensity of rain which was as high as 265 mm on November 16. It responded promptly, launching relief operations and demanded an immediate relief of Rs. 2,000 crore from the Centre.

But Jayshree Venkatecan, an environmentalist with an NGO, Care Earth, says this was a man-made disaster. Ms Venkatecan, who studies the ecologically sensitive Pallikaranai marshes near Velachery, showed how the once-50 square kilometres wetland has shrunk to a fraction of its size because of unchecked construction and encroachment of land. She told us that the marsh would have acted as a sponge to soak up rainwater, thus reducing the impact of flooding.

The bio-diverse wetland has seen its area chipped away by both industries – primarily an IT corridor on its western edges – and residential areas on the south and east. Environmentalists claim that the encroachments into the buffer zones around the marsh have also affected its capacity to act as a natural absorbent of flood waters. “Around 32 wetlands buffer the marsh. These are now part of the IT Corridor,” said Ms. Venkatecan.

The other big problem is a giant garbage dump – one of south Chennai’s two designated dumps – which has grown almost seven times – to 200 acres – its original allocated size, encroaching into the water body and exacerbating the flood situation. The city’s civic body pleaded helplessness, citing nature’s fury. “Our role is limited to maintaining civic infrastructure,” said city corporation commissioner Vikram Kapoor, admitting to poor planning in the suburbs. “This did not happen overnight. But Nature has a way of coming back if we don’t respect it.”

But the State Government had been warned against the fallout of rampant construction. A detailed development plan of the city, prepared seven years ago at the Government’s behest, had warned against building in marshlands, wetlands and low-lying areas. “What happened is we very clearly told them: High rise (construction) to be allowed in certain areas, medium rise in others, low rise in certain areas,” said M.G. Devasahayam, a former bureaucrat, who was a consultant for the 2009 report. But the reverse has been taking place, said Mr Devasahayam, with the result that natural drainage has been completely choked.

Ms Venkatecan says that no further development should be allowed in the marshlands. “These 231 sq kms, where there is an issue of waterlogging, you need to protect it.”

But cranes are hard at work at the ELCOT industrial park, not far from the Pallikaranai wetlands, and newer edifices are coming up in the ever-expanding suburbs, as NDTV found out. Lessons have clearly not been learnt from Chennai’s deluge.

Courtesy: Why Chennai Was Flooded. Warnings Were Ignored – NDTVcom

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