TO THE BRIM: Poondi reservoir as it looked a few weeks ago. — File Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI : Nearly 15 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of water has been let into the sea from Chennai's reservoirs -- Satyamurthi Sagar at Poondi, Red Hills and Chembarampakkam -- in the last three weeks.

This is equivalent to about 15 months' water supply at the rate of 500 million litres a day (MLD).

The water release was made during November 23-December 13. While calculating the quantum of the water release, the average figure of the daily issue was taken into account.

The Cooum witnessed heavy flows not because of the release from the three reserviors but because of the breach of several tanks in Tiruvallur district and the Zamin Korattur anicut. In the case of the Adyar, the flows from sources other than Chembaramappakkam also contributed. The maximum flow was about 30,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) in the Adyar and 18,000 cusecs in the Cooum.

Water release

On Tuesday evening, the PWD authorities released about 9,400 cusecs from the Poondi reservior and 3,000 cusecs from Red Hills. They had to resort to the releases in view of heavy rain in catchment on Monday. During the 24-hour-period that ended 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Cholavaram received 20 cm; Poondi - 17 cm; Red Hills -13 cm; Tamaraipakkam - 17 cm and Zamin Korattur - 11 cm.

Cholavaram storage

Given the fact that the city witnessed unprecedented flooding after experiencing drought consecutively for three to four years, the release of such a huge quantum of water has made the authorities focus on the creation of additional storage points.

Metrowater is said to have asked the Public Works Department to examine the possibility of enhancing the storage of the Cholavaram tank.

At present, the capacity of the tank is 881 million cubic feet. According to a group of experts, it can be increased to 2,500 mcft. This group argues that land acquisition would not be difficult, as poromboke land is available considerably.

A decade ago, there was a proposal to increase the level of the tank along with Red Hills, Chembarampakkam and Poondi reservoirs. But, it was given up, citing the cost factor. The area has porous earth, which is cited to oppose the idea of hiking the water level. But advocates of the proposal stress that the implementation of this scheme is easier than the others.

Other projects

At the time of the launch of the Krishna water supply project in 1983, proposals were mooted for creating two reserviors at Thirukandalam and Ramanjeri.

The two reservoirs were to hold one tmcft each. But, they were not pursued because of problems in land acquisition. Though the conditions have not changed much, some experts say that the possibility of building low-capacity reservoirs needs to be considered as they will involve less land.

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