Activists lambast plan to desilt lake

Kollam: Environmentalists flay the move by Kollam district panchayat to desilt the Sasthamkotta Lake in the name of conservation. The action council to save the freshwater lake has submitted a memorandum with the district collector terming it unscientific.

There was no study on the environmental impact of desilting before removing the silt, planned to be dumped on the shore to create a bund.

“Many such activities in the name of conservation have turned out to be gimmicks. Only a few out of 16,000 saplings planted on the banks of the lake in 2015 with the technical support of Biodiversity Board, sustain. The demand by the protection council since 2004 to appoint guards for the lake remains unaddressed. Now the beautification and silt removal by the district panchayat is a clear violation of environmental norms,” K. Karunakaran Pillai, chairman of the council, told DC.

“Before embarking on the project, a lesson should be learned from West Kallada where sand mining has destroyed the ecology.”

The move by the district panchayat is in violation of a notification by the Central Wetland Authority in 2010 November banning all sorts of works in a circumference of 50 meters of the lake.

Management action plan prepared by the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM) during 1998, 2010, and 2013 banned desilting the lake without environmental impact studies. It should be conducted only using sand pipes.

The Rs 16.5 lakh ‘Haritha Theeram’ project by the district panchayat envisages removing silt deposits around the shore of the lake in a depth of 30 centimetres and to construct a bund using the silt around the lake to prevent erosion. The soil protection office in Kottarakkara is executing the project.

Meanwhile, there are also allegations of ‘silt mafia’ gripping the lake to make some quick money by trading silt and sand in the name of the project.