Tamil Nadu: Raw sewage flooding Adyar river

CHENNAI: The Adyar river, which was recently cleared off garbage and sewage by the floods, is now getting contaminated again, this time by sewage discharged into it by metrowater pipelines. Owing to a pipeline burst, Metrowater has been discharging 30-40 MLD of untreated sewage to Adyar estuary near Thiru Vi Ka Bridge for over two days now.
The board had recently taken up work to replace 350-metre-long sewage pipelines, with a diametre of 1000m.One of them, however, burst owing to it being corroded and the board decided to divert the sewage into the estuary. A group of bird enthusiasts who visited the area for a bird census found the discharge. Several activists from the area are also speaking with officials, asking them to divert the sewage.
E D Babu, a marine biotechnologist, told TOI that the river has been getting polluted for the past two decades. "Nonetheless, discharge of so much raw sewage into the estuary is unacceptable. This is the place where aquatic animals and birds from both the ocean and the river settle to breed and feed their young,” he said.
A Metrowater official told TOI: “We didn’t expect that the pipeline would burst. It carries sewage from a pumping station to Perungudi sewage treatment plant. We will divert it at the earliest. In fact, we are replacing these pipelines to prevent such issues,” he said.
C R Balaji, an activist from the area, has lodged a complaint with the CM cell. “I have been noticing a lot of illegal discharge into the river due to corroded pipelines,” he said.