The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Poor groundwater quality causes concern

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 04, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Poor groundwater quality causes concern

By V.S. Palaniappan

COIMBATORE, JULY 3. The quality of drinking water in Central, South and Eastern part of the City was exceeding the recommended limits of drinking water quality standards in respect of one or more parameters, says a recent study conducted.

A four-member team led by M. Ibrahim Bathusha, Lecturer in Civil Engineering of the PSG College of Technology, had collected 144 samples at the rate of two samples from borewells in each of the 72-wards. The study was aimed at collecting samples and testing them for hardness, salinity, pH content, conductivity, chlorides, sulphate, alkalinity, sodium, potassium, calcium, total dissolved solids and magnesium. The samples were tested at the Environmental Engineering Laboratory.

The study pointed out that the drinking water was within admissible standards only in respect of seven wards in the North Zone of the Coimbatore Corporation, while it was exceeding the quality standards in 65 wards coming under the remaining zones.

Lack of mechanism

The excessive exploitation of groundwater and lack of mechanism and systems for ensuring recharge during rainy season is suspected to be the reason for the deteriorating standards of drinking water. The City had nearly four lakh borewells as against the permissible levels of 50,000, this has led to over exploitation and high levels of sedimentation in the existing water sources. The City's water supply managers need to take this into account and identify areas with good groundwater quality while sinking borewells for tapping 20 mld of water, groundwater experts point out on studying the GIS data bank.

Suitable for consumption

Water in ward numbers 67 to 72 in North Zone ranging from Gandhipuram to Ganapathy were suitable for human consumption, the study pointed out. The water in Ukkadam area was found to be having high levels of pollution because of the disposal of industrial and domestic waste in the Ukkadam periyakulam near the bus-stand.

While the water was unsuitable for drinking and consumption purposes, more than 70 per cent of the samples indicated that the water was not even suitable for construction purpose (since excess chloride concentration resulting chlorides induced corrosion). The public residing in these areas thus had to largely bank on the potable drinking water supplied by the Corporation either from the Siruvani and Pilloor schemes even for non-drinking and non-cooking purposes. Poor groundwater quality led to use of potable drinking water even for washing clothes, utensil washing and bathing.

Tail-end areas affected

Excessive use in three parts of the City always led to complaints of poor supply of potable water in the tail-end areas. The study team has also created a Geographic Information System (GIS) database.

With these study-related test results, a digitised map has also been created. This database and GIS database would be very useful for quick, effective and easy analysis for solving various related problems. While hardness in potable water was measured at 50 mg per litre, it was measured at 1,600 mg per litre at Vilankurichi and at 1,900 mg per litre in Chinna Sowripalayam.

Some of the areas had 900 mg per litre of sulphate in West and South Zones as against the permissible level of 400 mg per litre.

In most of the wards, the water had exceeding levels of sulphate. Chloride level was found to be maximum ranging from 1,000 to 1,200 mg per litre in a number of wards in East and North Zone as against the permissible level of 200 mg per litre whereas the chloride level was low in a number of wards in Central part of Coimbatore and in a few wards in North Zone.

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