JICA helping solve Lanka’s sewage and water treatment issues
KANDY – Pollution to the environment is caused by releasing untreated water from sewage, toilets and kitchens mostly in the Kandy town and elsewhere in Sri Lanka that causes health hazards. Even landslides can occur in areas when such water seeps into the soil in the absence of septic tanks, noted Project Director of the National Water Supply and the Drainage Board Ms. Wasantha Illangasinghe at a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) media briefing held at the Tourmaline Hotel in Kandy recently. She said a host of environmental problems like water pollution had occurred in Kandy as a result of discharging untreated water into the environment without centralized sewage treatment plants that are necessary in thickly populated areas like Kandy to safeguard the health of people.
“Only 2 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population is covered by sewerage plants whereas 87.4 per cent polluted water from toilets are treated by onsite sanitation. It took nearly four years to identify a suitable land in the Kandy area to locate the sewage disposal treatment plant and another 3-4 years to get the official approval to implement the project proposals. “However it was in 2010 that the project was vested in the National Water Supply and the Drainage Board to administer.” Several media personnel visited the massive waste water disposal plant in Kandy being constructed at Gannoruwa last week. The project is being financed by the JICA. The construction of the plant is done by a Japanese company named JFE Engineering Corporation.
The project is expected to provide improved sanitation in densely populated and low income areas in Kandy through installment of in house sanitation facility and refurbishing public facilities.”This will enhance sanitary environment of the community and will improve the health condition of people,” said the Resident Japanese Engineer S. Horiuchi in charge of the Gannoruwa Waste Water Sewerage Plant. “You can just imagine the size of the plant by looking at the massive pit that we have excavated. This was the first time that a waste water disposal facility has have been constructed in Sri Lanka and we hope to complete the project by 2018.” Before proceeding to the excavation site we had to don helmets along with several Japanese counterparts to avoid head injury.
Two Japanese women engineers were among their male counter parts working at the site. They could speak in flawless Sinhala, leaving us dumbstruck! Meanwhile the government of Sri Lanka has recognized the importance of sanitation services for sustainable development of the country by achieving 100 per cent sanitation coverage by the year 2025 by providing access to onsite and offsite sanitation facilities. The national goals in the sanitation sector is access to adequate sanitation made available to 93 per cent of the population of Sri Lanka by 2015 and 100 per cent by 2025. In addition pipe sewerage systems are provided in major urban areas and at selected locations.
However standard onsite sanitation is available to all those not connected to a sewerage system or other sanitation scheme. But most alarmingly pipe sewerage coverage in the country had reached only 2 per cent by 2015 and a considerable amount of waste water is pumped into the ocean, rivers, and water streams without any kind of treatment causing hygienic and environmental degradation. The proposed Waste Water Treatment Plant at Gannoruwa is set to treat 14,000 cubic metres a day and will utilize the Propeller type Oxidation Ditch System installed by the JFE Engineering Corporation.