The Hindu : Kerala / Kozhikode News : `Too many rain pits cause soil erosion, other eco hazards'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Kerala

Kerala - Kozhikode

`Too many rain pits cause soil erosion, other eco hazards'

Staff Reporter

Experts flay Government's conservation measures

KOZHIKODE: Soil and water conservation measures being taken up by the State Government and various agencies are meaningless, according to environmental scientists and experts who attended a people's collective at Pulpally in Wayanad district recently.

The collective was organised at Pulpally Vijaya High School by Wayanad Prakiti Samrakshana Samithi, along with Sreyas, Sulthan Bathery, and Pulpally and Mullankolli grama panchayats.

Satheeshchandran Nair, scientist, said digging up rain pits and building rainwater harvesting structures and check dams indiscriminately for water conservation would damage the environment. Building of granite walls would not help arrest soil erosion. Digging rain pits all over farmlands would only lead to soil erosion, he added.

Mr. Nair said water collected in rain pits would be lost owing to evaporation, and only by increasing the groundwater level could water shortage be solved.

He said ferro-cement tanks and PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipes were harmful to the environment. Countries, such as Japan, banned PVC pipes 10 years ago. PVC material caused infertility, serious genetic disorders and cancer.

Mr. Nair said wherever human beings had played havoc with the soil, the result was turmoil. "We are foolish in attempting to `rewrite' history instead of learning from it. We are madly in pursuit of a panacea. We can never recover what we lost. We have to preserve every inch of soil and every drop of water,'' he added.

According to him, water should never be stopped from flowing or diverted from its natural course. "The base of the largest hydroelectric project in the world, Three Gorges Dam, [in China] is in danger. We must remember that we now have only 21 full days of rain a year in Kerala,'' he added.

E.J. James, director, Centre for Water Resources Development and Management, said the money wasted in digging rain pits should be spent on reclaiming paddy fields.

Pulpally had the highest density of borewells in the State.

The `desertification' process in Karnataka was slowing creeping into districts such as Wayanad.

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