The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : A breather for the Adyar estuary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Oct 31, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A breather for the Adyar estuary

Vani Doraisamy

The death of the river will cost the city heavily in terms of destruction of life, property

GASPING FOR BREATH: Construction activities along the bank and sand quarrying are spelling doom for the Adyar river. — Photo: K.V.Srinivasan

CHENNAI: The High Court may have handed out a lifeline to the battered Adyar estuary by ruling against sand quarrying and unauthorised structures, but unless drastic remediation measures are put in place, the city may have already lost one of its last surviving ecosystems, environmentalists say.

The Wednesday ruling by the High Court has, in fact, brought only cautious cheer to activists who have been relentlessly fighting on several fronts against the assault on the estuarine ecosystem by the construction industry and business establishments, with the Government often caught in the middle.

Though in its ruling on a petition filed by T. Murugavel of the Trust for Restoration of Ecology and the Environment (TREE), the court had forbidden anthropogenic activities on the Elliot's Beach, the entire Adyar ecosystem would benefit only if the Coastal Zone Management Authority got to exercise statutory powers in curbing illegal activities.

The CZMA, however, has been found wanting on several fronts, especially in enforcing the Coastal Regulation Zone notifications, activists allege.

The ecosystem, comprising both the creek and the estuary, is too precious for the city to lose not just because of its biodiversity richness but also because the Adyar is both a floodwater carrier and a groundwater recharger. The death of the river would cost the city heavily in terms of destruction to both life and property. Less than 40 per cent of the original 100 acres of the creek remains now, the rest having fallen to reclamation.

"Irreparable damage was done to the ecosystem by the massive construction activity along the riverbank and this has absolutely no legal validation. If the CRZ notifications of 1991 had been strictly enforced, no new structures should have been allowed. Four things need to be done immediately if what little is left of the creek is to be saved: cease all construction activity, make a status assessment of the creek-estuary, rationalise on what development activity can be allowed and freeze all clearances given by the CMDA to new structures whose construction is yet to commence," says T.K. Ramkumar of Exnora International who has been studying the ecosystem in some detail.

"The estuary has been under continuous threat from business interests on both the northern and southern sides, with neither the CMDA nor the CZMA inclined to think of ecological safeguards. The threats started first in 1997 when construction began on the northern side and intensified in 2001 when sandbars were quarried across the estuary. Apathetic regulators and an indifferent public have added to the decline. Though legal battles are being fought against this, unless the CZMA starts bio-remediation immediately, the ecosystem is doomed," adds environmental activist T. Mohan.

Meanwhile, another concern: the Quibble Island stretch adjoining M.R.C Nagar — migratory bird paradise and semi-wetlands — also rapidly vanishing under towers of concrete, swallowed up by the hospitality industry, apartment complexes and government buildings.

Environmentalists have warned of an environmental "gridlock" — water inundation, soil salination and groundwater depletion — in just five years.

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