Chennai: Faced with the Herculean task of providing drinking water to Chennaiites during this summer, water managers associated with the Chennai metro water board are now awaiting results of water samples collected from Porur lake.
In the last three weeks, metro water engineers have collected water samples from at least 9 water bodies, including the abandoned quarries near Tirusulam and Mangaadu. On Wednesday the team led by Chennai metro water supply and sewerage board managing director V. Arun Roy visited the Porur lake to check out the feasibility of treating the lake water so that the harvested water can be put to drinking water purpose.
According to metro water sources installation of a temporary water treatment plant is underway and the water samples obtained from the plant will soon be sent to the Guindy Kings Institute to ascertain the quality of water. If the results are positive for public consumption the lake has a potential to provide 4 million litres of water per day prolonging up to a month. Similarly, there is about 1 tmc feet of water lying in the lakes located in suburban Chennai. Metro water is also eyeing these water bodies coming under Kancheepuram, CMWSSB sources said. Once, when the test results are out pipelines will be laid to harvest the water and these sources may become handy by next month.
Why not try cloud seeding ops?
Residents and civic activists of Chennai on Tuesday launched a forum (Chennai metropolitan water bodies and water rejuvenation forum) to discuss the present water crisis faced by the public in lieu of monsoon failure and due to the depleting water storage at reservoirs and lakes.
The forum, which comprises retired officials from metro water, also demanded a cloud seeding operation in Chennai to help the catchment areas. "We suggest cloud seeding operation in Chennai catchment areas as the state government took up cloud seeding during 1983, 87, 94 and in July 2013. The above technology was tried and the result was satisfactory. Now with the vast improvement of technology, the state can try its luck," said V. Rama Rao of the forum.
