Western Megapolis with more than a million residents could pollute Kelani river
The Kelani river is one of the backbones of Sri Lanka’s economy providing livelihoods to persons who live in close proximity to the river where over 10,000 small and large scale business are located of which only 3000 such businesses have an environmental pollution licence to operate there, said Dr. Ananda Mallawatanthri, Country Representative of IUCN Sri Lanka at a technical session of the Biodiversity Program held at the Ramada Hotel Colombo last week. He said businesses operating without such a licence are more likely to pollute the water quality in the Kelani river. Around 70 tonnes of nitrogen pass through this river annually in which some of it is natural while some come from agro chemicals.
“When the oxygen level in the water gets depleted below 4 per cent it becomes less environmental friendly.” Around 25 per cent of the country’s population live in close proximity to the Kelani river and there is a strong need, obligation and responsibility to protect water quality for future generations. “We found that the level of bacteria found in the Kelani river is not acceptable for health standards. The Western region Megapolis development project could (further) pollute the water quality of the Kelani river considerably when one million people reside there.
He said the water pollution of the river can be resolved by paying attention to agricultural, urban and industrial issues but some of the heavy metal found in the water cannot be resolved by water treatment plants alone. Public private partnership was essential to bring all relevant agencies together to resolve these issues, he said. Professor of Zoology at the University of Colombo, Devaka Weerakoon, speaking on the theme of ecosystems, said that several animals and unique species that live in Sri Lanka’s forest cover have reduced during the past century due to loss of forest cover.
“Lands in the forest cover have been fragmented and if the trend continues the forests will disappear altogether. These are some of the issues that we have to deal with as urbanization continues to push species out of their habitat.” He said the private sector has come to the rescue of the environment during the past few years and there is much flexibility when it came to disbursing of funds for the protection of the environment. He said no small country such as Sri Lanka has such unique bio diversity features. ”Although we are one of the global bio-diversity hotspots our endemic species can become extinct due to loss of forest cover.
We have lost 50 per cent of the forest cover during the past century. The forest patch at Vavuniya is a classic example where people have fragmented the land and if steps are not taken the forest will completely disappear. We have undertaken a pilot project in the Southern province where we are going to re-plant the forest for conservation purposes with funds received by us.” He said according to a survey done in 2015 private companies were engaged in 77 projects in conserving the bio diversity of the country, investing a lot of money.