A clear blue sea: Doing all he can to bring it back
Bags and bags of rubbish from the beach
In the over 40 years that he has been diving, Jehan Pieris has seen how the waters around Sri Lanka have changed– from a sea that was crystal clear to a murky pollution-filled one. Taking people diving off Mount Lavinia, once a wonderful experience, now only saddens him because of the sight of garbage lodged in the corals.
Not wanting to simply stand by and watch his beloved ocean getting more and more polluted, Jehan was moved to action this April. Along with Sheran Cooke of Suren Cooke Agencies, he formulated a plan to mitigate the effects of this widespread pollution, putting together a team of divers to clean some of the beaches as well as the sea. The Sri Lanka Aqua Club was contracted to help with the cleaning.
“We removed plastic that was stuck in the corals and other pollutants from the seabed on April 8 this year,” says Jehan. They dived to a depth of 13 metres for 70 minutes on the first dive and 14 metres for another 70 minutes on the second dive. “In addition to cleaning the sea bed, we also cleaned the beaches, filling huge bags with plastic bottles, old nets, fishing lines and many other pollutants from the Wellawatte and Dehiwala beaches,” Jehan adds.
A PADI master scuba diver trainer as well as a scuba instructor, Jehan currently runs Dive with Je and Swim with Je where he teaches diving and swimming.
Diving started off as a hobby and eventually turned into a profession for Jehan. While working at Richard Pieris & Company, he was, as he puts it, a ‘weekend diver’. Whenever he had time or the funds to do so he would dive as much as he could. His love for diving began from his childhood days, where he was encouraged to take part in as many sports as possible, doing springboard diving, swimming, water polo, cricket, basketball, hockey and athletics.
When he was boy of 12 he would skin dive, diving with a mask and fins, off Mount Lavinia after the school day at S. Thomas’ College ended and whenever his family went on trips to Trincomalee.
“The reefs in Mount Lavinia have been damaged to a certain extent and this could be from the residue emitting from the construction of the Port City. The currents have spread out the residue, and the water now looks different to how it used to be,” he remarks, adding that he does not mean to criticize the Port City, but believes that its construction has caused disturbances in the sea.
Jehan Peiris: Taking action
Much of the garbage that enters the sea flows from the canals in the Colombo area, he says. “Canals are dumping grounds and from there all the residue flows into the sea. People throw dirt, plastic and even syringes into canals and in addition chemicals and sewage make their way into the canals eventually landing in the sea.”
To fix the issue of canals dumping waste into the ocean, Jehan has come up with the idea to find out what exactly flows into the sea from the canals. “Starting from the estuaries I want to take it all the way up to the hill country. This would be a large operation as Colombo has many canals. The end goal here would be to map out all of the information into a database system so that we will know exactly what is going into the sea from the canals and the information would act as indisputable evidence that chemicals and pollutants are coming into the sea from the canals.”
Jehan believes that instead of penalizing people for polluting the rivers and other waterbodies, they should be educated on how to appreciate the environment. Children, should be educated about the dangers of polluting the environment as it is much harder for adults to change as they are set in their ways.
Jehan is determined to continue the diving operations he started to clean the pollutants on the seabed as well as the beaches in the hope that one day the waters can return to how he remembers it from his childhood – a crystal-clear sea that everyone can enjoy.