Pollution of rivers & canals by toxic waste grow toxic Crops

Poisonous Rivers

Pollution of rivers, streams and canals is caused, by the indiscriminate dumping of un-treated municipal and industrial toxic waste in them. Therefore, the nullahs, streams, canals & rivers function as the drains to carry the toxic effluent being used to irrigate land and then fall into the sea, taking toll of marine-life as well. Surprisingly, the country classified main natural surface drains & the subsidiary drains have disappeared due to encroachments, negligence and silting. The waterways of these drains are blocked and turned in to built up area. The rivers, canals, streams and drains water is polluted with various poisons making it hazardous for drinking purposes & irrigation uses damaging human health, and animal health besides contaminating crops. The hazardous toxic waste, grow toxic containing vegetables, fruit & crops for human consumption. It is therefore necessary to keep rivers and canals water free of pollution.

Amazingly, no essential man-made surface & sub-surface tile drainage system is provided to safely evacuate the toxic waste and the injurious saline drainage effluent from the Indus basin. The grave problems of missing natural & man-made-drainage systems & the pollution of rivers, canals, streams, drains and lake water, by toxic waste & the accumulation of drainage effluent as groundwater are very serious issues needing immediate Government attention. The natural surface drainage system that disappeared need revival to the original depth & width of waterways that are blocked for lack of maintenance violating the "Canal & Drainage Act of 1887".

The toxic industrial and municipal wastewater, fall into the Kabul River, the Indus River, the Jehlum River, the Chinab & Ravi Rivers. The Manchar lake and Hudiara drain are examples of pollution. So much so that DDT is dumped in the Malir River area. The Upper Chinab canal, Noorpur canal, Ludhaywala Minor and Mian Singh Minor canal are severely polluted. This is because there are no natural drains, and the essentially required separate man-made drainage system, for the evacuation of drainage effluent. Therefore rivers, streams and canals are polluted that ultimately pollute the sea, destroy fish & other marine life besides damaging crops, the Indus delta, the mangroves and Karachi harbour. Dolphin is disappearing from the Indus due to river pollution. The pollution is maximum at the out fall of the Indus into the sea. It is therefore direly essential that the toxic wastewater effluent must be treated first so as not to pollute surface and sub-surface water before it falls into the sea to harm marine life. The necessary treatment of pollution would protect the deteriorating Indus delta as well. Toxic waste is poison and therefore should never be allowed to fall in canals. Hepatitis is wide spread as surface and sub-surface water is polluted by the pollutants.

The vegetables and crops grown by the untreated polluted rivers and canals water contain more iron (Fe), excessive quantities of nickel (Ni), and cadmium (Cd) besides chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), arsenic (As), nitrates and fluorides and traces of mercury (Hg). The groundwater, because of fluorides poison, causes bone deformities. Moreover, the pH value of water used is as high as 13. The vegetables grown on land with toxic water contain heavy metals. The drinking water is microbiologically unfit for human consumption. The 80 to 100 percent wastewater samples exceed the permissible limits of heavy metals.

Punjab with maximum number of Industries of all sorts is the major source of contributing surface & sub-surface water pollution and Sindh including its own waste flow is the drainage bowl of wastewater pollution from the whole of the Indus basin polluting its surface & sub-surface water. The remedy lies in treating the toxic wastewater effluent before it is released.

The pollution is rapidly spreading and concentrating due to lack of proper treatment of toxic waste effluent from industries and cities. Moreover, the lack of proper drainage system both natural and man-made has further aggravated the problem. Therefore, the land, the surface water, the sub-surface water that is the groundwater, and the sea go on polluting that affect agricultural crops as well as marine life with increased chlorides and sulfates in seawater. The use of chemical fertilizers on land and the use of chemical spray on crops further aggravate pollution of land and water by the pesticides and insecticides laden run-off. The toxic waste from tanneries like sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, sodium carbonate, lime, soda ash and alkalies are thrown into the canal. The cattle that drank contaminated water produce contaminated milk. The biodegradable polyethylene bags block drainage system and aggravate pollution. Incinerators should be used for their disposal.

The increasing pollution of air by smoke emitting vehicles and from other sources, with rainwater further add pollution to river and canal water, agricultural land, surface water and groundwater as there is no infrastructure for evacuating polluted drainage effluent out of the area.

No action is taken to control noise, air, land, water and food pollution besides sea pollution. Food adulteration knowingly by man is yet another unchecked pollution in Pakistan. The 18 crores of population is being injected slow poising. The toxic wastewater passing through the Indus delta is ultimately dumped into the sea damaging marine life.

At present we in hale polluted air, drink polluted water, irrigate land with polluted water to grow polluted crops and eat polluted food produced on polluted land and water. The polluted air, water, land, crop and food turn as weapons of mass destruction invisibly and slowly. The over all pollution of environment adversely affect humans, animals, plant and marine life. The consumption of polluted air, food and water with excessive harmful elements work as  biocidal agents that adversely affect human blood chemistry, biology, biochemistry and bio- environment that causes physical and mental diseases. Moreover, all life form on earth is exposed to the dangerous radiation from the damaged ozone layer due to mankind self destroyed activities on earth. Global warming is yet another calamity generated as a consequence of misuse of the environment and by the creation of pollution.

The Quran has revealed that "Man is self destroyed". Modern wars and the explosions of atom bombs and other bombs emitting harmful radiation and smoke and the use of chemical weapons also cause great pollution. In short, it is a global affair & joint responsibility of all nations who call themselves civilized to control air, land, water & sea pollution on earth for better living on earth as earth is the common abode of mankind with specific environment for life to exist. The problem is not of a single country but of the whole environment and mankind living on earth. It is only the human beings on earth & no other living creatures' that cause pollution on earth. Let mankind set environment right for human beings to exist. Within the next 30 to 40 year, wild honey would disappear due to the use of insecticides, ruthless forest cutting & rapidly increasing population & increasing pollution. Other species would also extinct rapidly.

One still recollects the excellent & natural flavor, sweetness & taste of crops, fruit and vegetables and the fragrance of flowers before 1950. If that is recollected and compared with the present time, flavor, sweetness, taste & fragrance of fruit, flowers, vegetables and crops, it would be found by senior citizen that the environmental pollution of air, land & water have destroyed most of that quality. It means pollution has destroyed the quality of these life sustaining eatables what nature has gifted to human beings. Many fruit species are extinct. Moreover, the very human behavior is undergoing great physiological change due to polluted environment and the sign of this change appear in the form of depression, irritability, anxiety, fatigue and suicide.

In order to reduce and control rapid deterioration of environment due to the pollution of air, land, water, food, and sea, the following main preventive and improvement measures are suggested.

• Install toxic wastewater treatment plants where required. The treated effluent should be separately disposed off through proper drainage network. Hospitals should be provided with incinerators.

• Laws should be framed and enforced to include toxic wastewater treatment plants as an in-built part of industry. Similarly, all cities must have wastewater treatment plants. The resulting effluent should be carried separately in surface drains for safe disposal. 

• Revive full waterways of all the classified natural drains and streams that are choked up and encroached to the original shape and size to carry the waste flow after its treatment.

• Provide surface & sub-surface tile drainage in the Indus basin to carry the injurious saline drainage effluent to sea to keep land healthy for irrigated agriculture. SCARP & NDP costing Rs. 750 billion have failed due to the adoption of wrong project planning concepts of tube wells. This needs inquiry for its repeated failures & for making the situation extremely dangerous as no drainage system exits in the Indus basin to evacuate injurious effluent and other wastewater flow. This has dangerously increased pollution. Tube wells can not evacuate saline and injurious effluent out of the area to maintain salt and water balance and control sub­soil water table. It only circulates groundwater salinity.

• Carryout integrated comprehensive water management (ICWM) to save about 50 maf of canal seepage water and about 25 maf of flood flows that is about 75 maf of water out of 142 maf of the surface water. Long life storage reservoirs like the 35 maf Katzarah Dam on the Indus and the 8.5 maf Guroh Dop Dam on Panjkora River must be built. Watershed management be carried out to check silt and efficient network of drainage system be provided. These are the major components of water management. Water is the vehicle to carry away pollution for safe disposal & is the source of life. Water grows trees to fight pollution and the trees serve as lungs of cities.

• Carry out watershed management measures to avoid rapid silting of reservoirs by the silty Indus River water. The origin & the source of silt in the Indus River water is from the highly erodible soil of Skardu Valley. This is why reservoirs are silted up in short period of time. The dire need is to build the unique, multipurpose Katzarah Dam that would hold back silt in Skardu valley by acting as watershed management infrastructure, prolong life of down stream reservoirs, control super flood due to global warming, generate 15,000 MW of environment friendly hydropower and create 35 maf storage. Katzarah Dam would regulate the river flow, function as carry over reservoir, irrigate millions of acres of land in the four provinces and would have a life span of more than 1000 years. Pakistan is most unfortunate and is bound to become desert if Katzarah Dam and the integrated comprehensive water management (ICWM) are not taken in hand before the devastation caused by the incoming global warming.

• Revolutionary administrative changes at the policy & decision-making level are needed to actively handle environment and implement water and drainage projects as part of ICWM by professional experts at all levels. This responsibility is beyond the jurisdiction of non-professional administrators, as this is not their job. Similarly, the politicians should not unnecessary interference by demanding the execution of wrong or less beneficial projects on political grounds, thereby overriding professional merits.

• There is dire need for the separate disposal of toxic drainage effluent after treatment. This is necessary so that the surface & sub-surface groundwater all over the country is kept safe for drinking purpose & for irrigation uses for growing healthy vegetables & food crops. The country's fresh water resources should be protected from poisoning.

• Pakistan must grow artificial forests & tress all over the country including urban forestry in cities & use drip irrigation to cover an area between 20 to 30 million acres of land to fight air pollution. This would only be possible if the 35 maf multipurpose Katzarah Dam is build immediately through Chinese or Russian engineers

• Water and its use, is the source to fight pollution. At present about 60% surface water is wasted in seepage from the 150 years old, obsolete, incompatible,  supplied based canal irrigation system besides wastage of floodwater. This needs revolutionary modernization by providing the demand based canal irrigation system and building 35 maf storage dam at Katzarah to save floodwater wastage. The water saved would be used for developing irrigated agriculture and raise forests. Therefore, the need is for long life storage reservoir as available at Katzarah releasing silt free water. Besides this, surface and, sub-surface drainage system is direly needed to evacuate injurious effluent. Moreover, water must be efficiently used. All these measures form the integral part of ICWM.

• Approach UN, the World Bank and the Asian development bank to help fight air, land, water, food and sea pollution at global level to improve earth's environment and repair damages to the ozone layer to minimize the adverse effects of global warming. Pakistan may seek assistance from the UN and others to build Katzarah Dam and help implement ICWM as preventing measure against global warming and pollution. This is because Pakistan would be the worst hit country in the whole world by global warming due to its location on earth. Pollution would add more miseries.

If the Government of Pakistan ignores and fail to reduce the adverse effects of global warming and pollution, then the incoming famine by the year about 2035 would bring the dooms day. Pakistan would become desert due to pollution. It would face famine and would become diseased hit country. The motto for future election by the politicians should therefore be how to protect Pakistan from these horrible incoming calamities?

India held in storage, the Rabi supplies to Pakistan from Chenab River and Jehlum river in occupied Kashmir, turning these rivers seasonal in winter. This is violation of the Indus Waters Treaty.