Whither rivers

India’s arteries are choking. Her rivers, the lifeline of hundreds of millions, are over-taxed, polluted and encroached. They are being mined, dammed and emptied of water. Save for the four monsoon months, most rivers are streams of drains, depending on how many cities they pass through. This year people gaped in awe at the River Yamuna (I am sure they were over-awed by other rivers elsewhere too) as for the first time since 1978 looked like a river and not a drain.

Mining constitutes a major, and largely unrecognized, threat to our rivers. The others are high profile and get a lot of press but mining passes mostly unnoticed. Miners extract thousands of truckloads of sand and stones from river beds across the country to feed the ever-hungry construction industry. Some of the mining is legal but most is not. Rivers also receive the waste water from mines; the Damodar river[1] flows black with the effluent from the coal washeries along its course and the Mandovi and Zuari rivers (Goa) are similarly poisoned by iron ore mines.

Mining rejects comprise clay that hinder plant growth and have a high concentration of iron, manganese and alumina. Over time, they increase acidity in soil and reduction of fertility.[2] This is at the receiving end, and the story of only two rivers but they are illustrative. The Damodar has the misfortune of passing through one of the world’s richest mineral belt. The others rise in hills that have some of India’s best iron ore.

Consider what quarrying has done to the Arkavati river just outside India’s cyber city, Bangalore. This used to be a perennial river and supplied water to Bangalore; a 45 minute drive out of the city brings you to the old British-era water works that was supplied via aqueducts from the river. Now, the pumps stand silent in the giant pump-house and the aqueducts are broken in many place. The river is dry, caused in large part by granite quarries in its upper catchments and sand mining[3]. Because of this, water does not reach the river any more but accumulates in mining hollows. The monumental dam built to divert river water to the volute siphons, and from there to the water works, holds no water.

The holy Ganges is no exception. Across the ghats in Varanasi, in the low season, I have seen tractor-loads of sand being ferried away, as also in Patna. I am sure in other towns and villages that live off the river, the story is the same. People cart away what they need, and to feed their greed. In the process, they destroy the ability of the river to perform its ecological functions. The sand is critical to allowing water recharge. It is also crucial for filtering the water before it percolates into the ground, or reaches wells located along the river banks. Removing sand and gravel in quantities greater than the river can replenish increases the velocity of water and changes its flow, speeding up the erosion of banks. It speeds up aquifer depletion. The sand and silt are rich in nutrients and poor people farm on river beds in the dry season; indiscriminate mining denies them this meager subsistence.

In Madhya Pradesh, the state government exempted sand and gravel mining in river beds from environment clearances. As a result, miners have literally devoured the river beds of all its rivers, major and minor, disregarding any environmental concerns. In Kerala, the Bharathapuzha river has been mined almost to death; groundwater levels have fallen dramatically and people in the Palakkad district, that depend heavily on the river for water, face a regular summer drought.[4] The Kali river in Karnataka is similarly afflicted; there is massive illegal sand mining in the Chandewadi and Ilavadabe forests. [5]

Outside Delhi, the Aravalis are being chopped into the ground by petty miners who supply stones to the city’s thriving construction. It did not help that the Commonwealth Games created an unprecedented demand for this construction material and has had a pull effect on the building industry in the entire region. As a result of this mining, at least three lakes – Suraj Kund, Badhkal and Damdama – have dried up while others are nearly dry. The rain water that used to fill them no longer reaches the lakes; it fills up the craters left behind by the miners.

In all these, and more, cases, it is apparent that there is no regulation; mining flourishes under official and political patronage. Court orders to shut down mines are observed in the breach because the enforcers are part of the problem. The mines outside Delhi have been shifted and shut twice on the orders of the Supreme Court but the problem continues.

Given this, what can we realistically do to reduce the impact of mining on our rivers. Where rivers are polluted by the tailings of mines, it is possible to reduce the impact by treating water before letting it into rivers through settling ponds and flocculation. Additional filtration can remove the total suspended solid load to acceptable levels. The mining companies have to install these devices to check pollution.

To reduce illegal sand and gravel mining is tougher since most of it takes place at small scale ‘under the radar’. However, a few things can reduce its impact. The local administration or non-profit organization can identify and mark ecologically sensitive areas along rivers where mining is forbidden. Areas where mining has exhausted all available resources should be treated through watershed development and/or natural regeneration. A new framework for rehabilitating mined-out areas is required that can be used by miners as well as local people. It is essential to enforce tribal rights where mining happens on tribal land through the existing laws. Local communities and NGOs should be legally empowered to enforce rules to control mining and restoration of degraded land.[6] Nothing, however, will work as well as making the law enforcers do their job and this is where the importance of better governance lies; the simple act of holding miners accountable can control and reverse most of the ill-effects of sand mining on our rivers.

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[1] The River Damodar, Rainwaterharvesting.org; http://www.rainwaterharvesting.org/crisis/River-Damodar10.htm

[2] Rank, J. S. 2006; Study of the effect of mining rejects on degradation of soil and river ecology; Workshop on Science-Policy Interactions on river basins and coastal zone management, National Institute  of Oceanography, Goa

[3] Patel,  Bharti; Sharing of water between rural, urban and peri-urban areas located along Arkavati river basin in Karnataka; Svaraj, Bangalore

[4] Bagchi, Proloy, 2010; Unregulated sand mining threatens Indian rivers; Ground Report; http://www.groundreport.com/Health_and_Science/Unregulated-sand-mining-threatens-Indian-rivers_1/2918116

[5] Rao, Bhargavi, and R. Padmashree; Sand Mining in the Kali Valley; Environment Support Group, Bangalore

[6] Kumar, Pankaj, and Gopalan, Ramya, 2007; Impact of Mining on Water Availability and Quality; Solution Exchange Water Community, New Delhi