Mission to save Selaiyur lake: Facelift to enter second phase

“The main purpose of providing clean drinking water was defeated as untreated sewage was let into the lake. The quality of the water was so bad that it couldn’t even be used for gardening purposes. So the second phase of the lake restoration will focus on plugging the sewage outlets into the waterbody. We will also install a silt removal chamber, which can also control pollution,” said Darwin Annadurai, founder of Eco Society India.

“While we cleared all the prosopis juliflora trees which occupied an area of 1.5 km near the lake to create a path for the public, we saved all native trees to help with the biodiversity of the lake,” he added.

The volunteers collected all plastic wastes, liquor bottles and removed water hyacinth from the waterbody. They have also installed a screening mesh to stop the garbage from entering the lake.

“We used to collect a huge quantity of waste from the lakebed every week. But, by the time we reached the 4oth week of restoration work, we collected only 2 bags of waste. It was happy to note that the residents had also stopped dumping waste into the waterbody after witnessing our efforts,” said Vikraman R, a volunteer.

“A problem that we faced during the restoration process was the pressure we had from residents to axe the trees in the area. Their reason for it was that anti-social elements were consuming alcohol under the cover of the trees and then dumping the empty bottles into the lake. But felling trees was against the principles of the restoration project,” he added.

When contacted, a senior local body official said, “We have permitted the volunteers to clean the lake and they keep us updated every week. We are inspecting the lake often on who is dumping the garbage into the lake. If they are willing to continue the restoration work the permission will be granted.”