‘Pain and agony of one community shifts to another community’
Fr Priya Jayamanne, Parish Priest, Ja-Ela Our Lady of Sorrows Church addressing the media.
Garbage in many countries has been transformed into a productive and environmentally-friendly exercise. However in Sri Lanka dumping of garbage is still a major issue. The big ‘land mudalalis’ cash in by offering marshes they own particularly at Muthurajawela from Wattala to Negombo to reclaim the land by dumping garbage after which workplaces and factories are built on. It is also known that these millionaire ‘mud-sellers’ have powerful political connections with one example at Nendurupitiya, Kandana overlooking the Colombo Katunayake Expressway where huge marshy land was reclaimed using Ja-Ela Pradeshiya Sabha garbage. These lands are claimed to be owned by very powerful people in the area who when people around the area protest, quell them by getting the agitators arrested by the police.
Though the government says it is tackling the environment and garbage issues in the country, the fact is that filled up marshes are used for various government’s development projects, especially now with the ambitious Megapolis plan which needs a lot of land. Thus politically-connected owners of these marshes fill the land with garbage (free), at the expense of environment issues faced by residents, and then sell the reclaimed land. President Maithripala Sirisena persistently speaks of environmental protection and has called upon the officials to take stern action against those who violate the environment. But the rate at which the environment is violated and abused in broad daylight shows to what extent officials are heeding the President’s call for action.
The latest development in Sri Lanka’s struggle with the garbage problem (many good proposals and suggestions in the past have been made but disregarded by the political and administrative hierarchy) is a court order for the Colombo Municipality to abandon the Meethotamulla garbage ‘mountain’ and use another suitable location. In this context plans are afoot to shift the garbage to Ekala at the Ekala ‘Othe Kele’ – a 35 acre privately-owned marsh -, but soon as this information was received, Ekala residents on Monday held a massive street protest blocking roads which was called off later. The next day, several Catholic priests from the churches around the areas held a media briefing at the Ja-Ela Church to explain the crisis that would emerge if the CMC garbage is dumped at Ekala.
Rev Fr. Priya Jayamanne, Parish Priest, Ja-Ela Our Lady of Sorrows Church, said that the dumping at Ekala is like the pain and agony of one community being shifted to another community which is not at all a people’s solution. He said that the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka has realized the gravity of the issue and how it would affect the very lives of the people in this area. His Eminence Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith, Archbishop of Colombo has appraised the priests in all the parishes in the area to mobilise the people to agitate against this act. He said dumping garbage on the 35 acre-marsh could cause serious problems as the area is already highly polluted by emission of effluent waste and water. The entire underground water table would be polluted and would cause heavy flooding.
It would not only affect areas up to Gampaha, Ganemulla, Wattala, Pamunugama and Negombo but also contaminate the Ja-Ela canal, Aththanagalu Oya and the Negombo lagoon. Contrary to some reports, the National Engineering Research and Development Centre (NERD) at Ekala hasn’t any solution to the garbage issue. Ananda Namal, Director General NERD, said that no such project has been envisaged. When he was asked about their earlier proposal to deal with the CMC garbage he said that it was only a viable theoretical approach as the proposal was on technology developed by them to recycle only the vegetable garbage but there was a problem of separating vegetable garbage from other garbage collected. There is a lot of expertise available in finding solutions to the garbage issue but the authorities are either lackadaisical or simply not interested in using such expertise. This has been the case for over 30 years.
One such expert is Negombo-based engineer, Athula Jayamanne, Chief Consulting Engineer/General Manager, Eco Engineers & Co who is handy with latest inventions on waste water treatment technology. Mr. Jayamanne, who has won many international awards for his work, has handled massive waste water treatment projects for the Karnataka Pollution Control Board in India dealing with wastewater treatment in major rubber and coconut factories and large tourist hotels. He has been involved in such projects since around five years. Recently he received a massive project assignment from the Philippines. He says he has handled large garbage recycling projects at several Pradeshiya Sabhas including the PS of Weligama and Balangoda and expressed a desire to get involved in any national effort to solve the garbage problem. (Quintus)