The civic body to carry out a thorough investigation into the reasons due to which the northern part of the lake shows several factors indicating higher levels of pollution than the rest.
While environmentalists have been regularly raising a red flag over sewage choking the Powai lake, they now want the civic body to carry out a thorough investigation into the reasons due to which the northern part of the lake shows several factors indicating higher levels of pollution than the rest.
A scientific water quality assessment of the lake water from five different locations of the lake carried out for three days revealed that the chemical oxygen demand (COD), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) as well as Dissolved Solids were highest in the northern parts where the lake is surrounded by a luxury hotel, new IIT hostel, Tansa pipeline and flanked by several hutments too.
As per Dr Pramod Salaskar, Secretary, Naushad Ali Sarovar Samvardhini (NASS) who has been studying the Powai lake ecosystem for several decades, he carried out the water analysis between April 10 to 12 at five location including near dam, rambaug, Central area, Ganesh immersion ghat and the northern part.
"COD in the northern part was the highest (218mg/l) and BOD too was highest in northern part (39.4mg/l) followed by Ganesh immersion point (24.8mg/l)," he said explaining that higher the COD higher is the amount of pollution in the test sample meanwhile consequences of high BOD are the same as those for low dissolved oxygen in water that can lead to death of aquatic organisms due to stress and suffocation.
Meanwhile highlighting another factor that indicates the presence of sewage, Salaskar who is a water quality analyst said that tests showed high levels of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) too and as usual the highest TDS was found in the water sample collected from the northern part (289) followed by Ganesh immersion point (236).
Summing up his observation from the test results, Salaskar who regularly has been carrying out analysis of water from Powai lake said that the trends were worrying as there has been a constant rise every year in various pollution indicating factors. "Simply put- there is an extremely high level of domestic sewage entering the lake and what seems to be a major concern is that the northern part of the lake seems to have the highest flow of sewage as is evident from the water analysis report and BMC should investigate if large amounts of sewage were entering from somewhere and ideally plug the source," said Salaskar.
Sunish Kunju, Honorary Wildlife Warden (Mumbai city) who has been crusading to save Powai lake said that it was sad that such a biodiversity hotspot and the only lake in urban area to have crocodile was dying due to sewage and it was over a decade since they have been asking BMC to stop releasing sewage in this lake. "These tests results by Dr Pramod Salaskar who is an expert on Powai lake is certainly worrying and hence BMC too should carry out their owns water sampling and testing water from different parts of the lake along with independent experts or members of NGO's to ensure that there is transparency and if its found that a large amount of sewage is affecting the northern part of the lake investigations should be carried out to assess from where the sewage was being released and it should be stopped," he said.
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