City’s coastal waters go from bad to worse

Even as the New Link Road Residents Forum has been highlighting the extremely hazardous and unsanitary condition in which illegal slum dwellers have been living in precious mangrove forests, defecating in the open and destroying mangroves, here is an alarming report in the Times of India of the 4^th October 2013.

Clara Lewis Times News Network 4^th October 2013 

Mumbai:

It’s common knowledge that the sea off Mumbai is not the best to wade into. But what’s shocking is the rate at which the quality of the water is worsening. 
A comparison of data on the quality of the water over one year shows that it has slipped on all parameters, particularly the concentration of faecal coliform. 
Senior civic officials said a chief reason was untreated sewage flowing into the sea. “Our discharge standards are deteriorating,” admitted one. 
The presence of faecal coliform, which can cause a number of diseases, has shot up all along the western coast. At Versova, it is up from 811 per 100ml in 2011-12 to 1,650 in 2012-13, a rise of 103%. The accepted standard is 500/100ml. At Juhu beach that sees the maximum tourists every day, the pollutant has jumped from 914/100ml to 1,325, a 45% rise in one year. 

Figure 1 BMC demolishing illegal structures in mangroves at Ganpat Patil Nagar, Borivali

Malad plant spewing untreated sewage, penalize BMC: MLA 

Mumbai: Malad MLA Aslam Sheikh of the Congress has asked the government to heavily penalize the BMC for discharging untreated sewage into the Malad creek. He wants the penalty to be charged with retrospective effect as the BMC has failed to comply with pollution norms for more than 15 years. 
Sheikh said sewage from Dahisar to Goregaon was being discharged untreated into the sea here. “The Malad sewage treatment plant is very primitive. It only screens the sewage and cleans the grit. The sewage is discharged untreated,” he said. 
The plant receives around 150 million litres of waste water daily. “Even a visual inspection of the waste released by the plant is enough to confirm that it is not fulfilling any norms set by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board. While most other treatment facilities would retain untreated water in settlement ponds for a minimum period of 24 hours, this plant can only treat water for less than 15 minutes and has to dispose of sewage water within that period as it does not have the holding capacity,” he has said in his letter to CM Prithviraj Chavan. 
Sheikh has demanded that a secondary treatment plant be set up immediately.

Civic officials, however, point out that the file for upgrading the sewage treatment plant under the Mumbai Sewage Disposal Project Phase–II is stuck with the revenue and forest department for environmental clearance. “The land where the treatment plant is to be set up has