Kerala - Kochi   

Study finds water unfit for humans

KOCHI: The water source adjoining the solid waste treatment plant at Brahmapuram has been ‘declared not fit for human activities without proper disinfection,’ according to a recent study by the School of Environmental Studies of the CUSAT.

The study was held in June this year for the Kochi Corporation and the report was released by the Kochi Mayor Mercy Williams. “The microbial analysis clearly indicated high total heterotrophic bacterial population with faecal coliform. As the coliform count has been detected above the permissible level, the water source is declared unfit,” the report said.

The dissolved oxygen is comparatively low indicating high consumption of oxygen and this must be due to the excessive vegetative growth and other biodegradable materials in the water body. This limits the carrying capacity of the water body for any further load of oxygen consuming substrates. The samples collected from downstream show higher acidity and hardness compared to the upstream water samples. The trends of higher values of sulphate hardness and the low pH at the downstream point may be due to the gypsum dump adjacent to the river, the report said.

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