A NATIONAL daily reported on Saturday that disposal of untreated chemical waste into rivers around the city is posing big threats to aquatic life and public health; the flow must be stopped forthwith. Mills and factories on the riverbanks and at remote places are polluting those rivers when many canals linking factories to rivers are also carrying human waste aggravating the river pollution.
As it appears expert have always laid emphasis on setting up effluent treatment plants at factory sites and riverbanks. The government initiatives have so far remained insufficient and particularly the relocation of tanneries from the west end of the capital to Savar has also failed over the past one decade. The plan to set up waste treatment plants at Savar has also failed from hectic lobbying within the ruling party establishments as to who would get the tender. Bangladesh passed law in 1995 making it compulsory for all industrial units to set up waste treatment plants. But powerful lobbies were able to bypass it.
River Buriganga is the worst case of pollution so far where most fish population has already died turning it as a reservoir of filth and human waste. Even rowing across the river is now difficult in heavy water spreading bad smell in the air. Riverside people are increasingly becoming victims of water borne diseases and whatever fish remains available has grown toxic for public health. Chemicals such as cadmium and chromium and materials like mercury are pouring into the river from tanneries, textile mills and such other plants and creeping into the ground water contaminating drinking water source for city dwellers.
Bangladesh is criss-crossed by hundreds of rivers facing an uphill task to keep them navigable and their waters safe from contamination. Rivers and water bodies around Tongi and Savar in the outskirt of the city are already highly contaminated and many of them drying up choked off from pollution and encroachment. Four rivers near Dhaka — the Buriganga, Shitalakkhya, Turag and Balu — receive 1.5 million cubic meters of waste water every day, in addition to 0.5 million cubic meters as household waste. Unabated encroachment of riverbanks and waterbeds are blocking free flow of water creating local pockets and sedimentation destroying the course of rivers.
These are not unique problem for Bangladesh. Every country promoting industrialization faces the problem and also resolving it. In Bangladesh the problem is that the government is yet to achieve effective leadership capacity – be it this government or the previous governments to fight back such sensitive issues. Singapore River was like Buriganga initially. But they have turned it into a great resource. It is not difficult but we must know the cost of failure would be too big.
