Published :
Updated :
For all latest news, follow The Financial Express Google News channel.
The news that different species of dead fish are floating in the river Meghna is unsettling. Strangely, this ecological disaster has not been widely covered by the media and the newspapers which did placed it on inside pages. The Meghna is the country's widest river with an average 3,400 metre width and its average depth too is healthy at 308 metres. So, it is beyond imagination that fish can die in a river near the estuary north of Shatnol where it is five kilometre wide. But it is not only fish but also aquatic creatures including frog, leech and snake which were dying for three weeks, if not more, in a 12-13 kilometre stretch of the river to the north of Motlob.
Following reports on this mass death of fishes carried in the media on January 27 last, a high-level investigation committee formed promptly by the Department of Environment (DoE) and the Fisheries Department, visited the affected site only three days later on January 30. This is indication enough that the authorities took the issue quite seriously. Reportedly, the members of the committee collected water from three different points. After preliminary tests, the water samples were sent to a laboratory in Dhaka for further tests. By this time, the test results should have been available because the head of the committee told it should take no more than five days.
The follow-up stories of the disquieting development were most expected. But until writing this column, this scriber did not come across any such follow-up. However, the Motlob Upazila (North) Fisheries Office has also conducted a test of the water in the affected area to determine its quality. According to the test, the pH level of water has declined to 6.0-6.5 ppm (parts per million) compared with its normal concentration level of 7.5-9.0 ppm. Contrarily, ammonia has marked a rise to 0.2 ppm as against the normal 0.1 ppm. Worse still is the sharp drop of oxygen level to the precarious 1.0-1.5 ppm from the ideal 6.0-5.5 ppm.
This cannot happen on its own; there are culprits who are responsible for poisoning the water not only of the Meghna in this particular segment but waters of other rivers flowing by towns and cities, particularly those with heavy concentration of factories and industries. Now it is revealed that death of a number of species of fish has been occurring in the river segment under scrutiny for the past few years. This has hardly received media attention and the government that boasted the credit for declaring the Buriganga a living entity and subsequently bringing other rivers under the purview could not be more indifferent to restoring the health of rivers struggling with pollution or in their death throes.
The task force constituted to suggest redress for the man-made disaster wreaked with the symbiotic ecosystem sustainable for both rivers and urban centres has rightly pointed out that the existence of Dhaka City is at risk because of the inevitable disappearance of the Buriganga and other water courses around the capital. Narrow and personal interests of the greedy, powerful and mindless big wigs have always got the better of environmental concerns. This is why the status of 'rivers as living entity' or eviction of encroachers from river banks from time to time was just a show.
Had it not been the case, the river commission formed with so much fanfare to save the country's rivers would not be left as a toothless tiger. The commission was neither strengthened with recruitment of required manpower nor allocated enough money and delegated executive authority to go all out against the illegal grabbers of land from rivers. It was clear that the first chairman of the commission meant business and under him the river commission made a reasonable survey of the rivers to prepare a list. At some point, the chairman even vented his frustration at the non-cooperation of the administration and absence of allocation of money for the jobs at hand.
Can the nation expect a positive approach to the issue of saving rivers following the task force's recommendation? Indications are not highly optimistic. If the experience of the campaign against polythene shopping bag --- yet another most dangerous pollutant that causes incalculable harm to both land and water bodies including the sea--- is any guide, it seems such moves start with a bang only to end in a whimper. Much as it did under the political governments preceding the current interim one. Instead of beating about the bushes, the bull needed to be taken by the horn. Like previous government, this one also seems to be shy of launching the targeted drive like plugging the sources of polythene shopping bags---factories that is, where those materials are produced and the route through which raw materials are imported.
Any half-hearted approach to issues like these does not yield desirable results; instead those embolden the violators of legal provisions to go about their illegal business with renewed zeal. The problems are precisely identified. That industrial effluent and waste are polluting river waters is non-controversial. But when it comes to action, only empty threats are issued. If the authorities gave three months' or even six months' time to install effluent treatment plants (ETPs) or made arrangement for incentives such as duty-free import of machines and devices or even tax holiday for a year or two for factories getting such facilities installed, the problem could be solved. Factories in Narayanganj and Munshiganj are responsible for polluting Meghna waters. Those like their counterparts in old Dhaka, Hazaribagh, Keraniganj etc., must be made to comply with the government order for mandatory installation of ETPs or central effluent treatment plants (CETPs). This can be made possible with the empowerment of the river commission and its collaboration with the DoE.