No right to pollute

JUL 08 -

With the coming of the monsoon, the filth in our rivers will be temporarily flushed out. Yet many rivers in Nepal and South Asia are in a state of continuous degradation. The technological lock-in of water-based sewage disposal systems and their unquestioned adoption and practice is one of the main reasons for the sorry state of our rivers.

Flush toilets have become a basic necessity for the majority of urban Nepalis. Each flush converts about 15 liters of clean water into sewage. These flush toilets are a technological artifact of the Victorian era that have failed to evolve despite massive improvements in science and technology over the years. Every day, we carelessly mix vast amounts of clean water with our excrements and then proceed to dump them untreated into natural water bodies via underground sewer lines. The more sleek and comfortable a household’s bathing facilities become, the more polluted our rivers get. Kathmandu’s newly built high-rise apartments, condominiums and housing colonies are quickly becoming point sources of high volumes of liquid wastes that end up untreated in our rivers and their tributaries.

Not long ago, standing on the bank of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu was a blissful experience. The water’s ripples and whirls were a continuous reminder of nature’s beautiful gift. As a child on the bank of the river, I would rejoice watching the fast flowing river break at its sandy bed in a white froth. It took me almost 20 years of formal training to understand the science that explained this hydraulic phenomenon. Dramatic innovations and developments in the sciences and in technological tools have helped us develop safe drinking water and waste disposal systems. The basic water needs of most people in the developed world have been met. Wastewater treatment methods in those parts of the world are fairly robust and are put into effective use. But not only is wastewater in the developing world still untreated, but a majority of the people living in our part of the world also do not have access to clean drinking water.

Nepal’s kulos, Kathmandu’s dhungaydhara and ponds and the anicut, garat, kuhl and karezin of South and Central Asia were built before modern hydraulic science was developed. They were built when needs were limited and the waste generated was minimal. For thousands of years, these traditional systems continued to function and serve their purpose, becoming part of our rich cultural heritage. However, increasing demands and the proliferation of waste caused by unregulated urban growth have relegated them as inefficient and insufficient to meet emerging needs. If this trend continues, the remaining traditional systems will become extinct in the near future. When our traditional systems die, so will our rivers. They will increasingly be filled with sewage, untreated industrial pollutants and solid waste. Ultimately Nepalis, our entire nation and, consequently, our civilisation will lose out.

Already depleted of their flow by water diversions upstream, the Valley’s rivers have become sorry sights and a conservationist’s nightmare. In many developing countries, utilities that manage cleanup services are unaccountable to the people and often fail to meet their responsibilities. This type of pervasive institutional dysfunction is also present in Nepal and is partially to blame for turning the Bagmati and its tributaries in Kathmandu into sewage. Because our prevailing water and waste managing institutions have no incentives for improving, vast stretches of our rivers continue to remain filthy.

If we allow such conditions to continue, it is likely that people in Kathmandu will cease to see clean flowing rivers. This is unacceptable, and we must begin to improve the state of our rivers. But where and how do we begin? Clearly, there are no silver bullet solutions to make the rivers run clean immediately. Our approach must be multi-pronged and continuous because improvements can only come incrementally.

We can start by first minimising the volume of treated water that we turn into sewage. Installing low volume flush toilets in existing and new bathrooms can dramatically reduce that volume of water. Installing rainwater harvesting tanks for flushing toilets can also help minimise it. Diverting rainwater into a tank and using this stored water in bathrooms will prevent treated water—from municipal and other supply sources—from becoming sewage. A 1000-liter capacity tank, for example, will meet the flushing needs of a family of five for four monsoon months. Tanks of higher capacity can be used if needs are higher, though this decision will also mean higher investment. The amount of clean water saved can thus be allocated to meet needs of those without an acceptable level of service or be stored in aquifers to meet needs in drier seasons.

The use of rainwater and low volume toilets for flushing will help prevent treated water from becoming sewage, but they will not make our rivers clean if household and other industrial waste continues to go untreated into rivers. We desperately need to devise alternative methods of disposing our waste—a method that will not pollute our fresh rivers. A non-water based disposal system, such as ecological sanitation that separates the yellow (urine) and solid matters (excrement), needs to be scaled up for effectiveness.

In the meantime, we must devise a societal charter on a new water ethics that includes a goal to separate the waste cycle from the hydrological cycle. At the very least, this charter must prohibit sewage and wastewater from entering our rivers without first running it through some kind of primary treatment, such as simple oxidation ponds. Implementing such a charter will not be easy. Reaching a consensus between the myriad groups who have a stake in these processes will be elusive. And even if we do arrive at consensus, using new methods to dispose our liquid waste will be difficult because water-based waste disposal technologies are already so entrenched in our daily lives. Old habits and institutional inertia will be hard to overcome. Transitioning to a non-water based waste disposal future requires technological innovation, a willingness to cover and subsidize costs and institutions with the right incentive structures for systematically treating wastewater.

Our grandparents, as custodians of our natural world, gave us clean, flowing rivers. Our generation has no right to turn these living and flowing rivers into sewage. We cannot and must not hand them over to the next generation in such a sorry state. All rivers must be kept clean, and stretches of them must flow free. Without a societal commitment to do so, our children will be forced to visualise clean flowing rivers only through computer animations. They deserve much better. We must make our rivers clean, flowing and living again.

Source: http://www.ekantipur.com/2012/07/08/oped/no-right-to-pollute/356794/