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Sunday, May 18, 2008
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Pilot project to arrest seawater intrusion

K. Lakshmi

— PHOTO: N. SRIDHARAN

The tank of the Marundeeswarar temple at Thiruvanmiyur, where water will be diverted.

CHENNAI: To arrest seawater intrusion at Besant Nagar, the Groundwater circle of the Public Works Department has proposed a pilot project to divert rainwater from Taramani and its neighbouring places to recharge the Besant Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur areas.

The project was approved by the State-level steering committee under the chairmanship of PWD secretary and has been sent to the Ministry of Water Resources for approval.

A PWD official said groundwater in Besant Nagar had been affected due to intrusion of seawater up to 500 metres. On the other hand, Taramani was a clay-bedded area that allowed only less water infiltration.

The proposed project would serve two purposes — prevent water logging in chronic areas and arrest seawater intrusion through artificial recharge.

To be funded by the Central Ground Water Board, this project envisages linking of runoff water from Taramani and institutions such as IIT-Madras and Anna University to Marundeeswarar temple tank at Thiruvanmiyur instead of draining it into the Buckingham Canal, he said.

The runoff water collected in the storm water drain at Taramani would be arrested near IT Corridor along the bank of Buckingham Canal and would be diverted to a sump.

The water collected in the sump would be pumped through an intake well and transmitted to the temple tank through a 2-km pipeline. The water would be released into the tank after filtering it in a chamber.

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