Work on clear Cooum project nearing completion

According to officials, the remaining work would be undertaken after about illegal structures, numbering about 300, are removed from the banks of the river. “The delay is due to the pending court cases pertaining to the encroachments abutting the river,” said a WRD official.

After it was widened following the removal of encroachments, the river now has a width ranging between 80 and 150 metres. Using the earth removed from the river during the desilting work, the height of the bund was increased up to three-four metres at a few spots along the stretch. “Now the Cooum has the capacity to carry 26,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) floodwater,” said the official.

In order to plug the sewage inflow and end the problem permanently, Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) modules would be set up. “We have given the nod to set up modular STPs to improve the quality of the river water,” said the official.

Within the city limits, the river traverses a distance of 20 kilometres. The project is being implemented by various agencies, who have undertaken 69 works in three phases.

The PWD has been tasked with desilting, demarcation and fixing boundary stones, and also biometric survey of those resettled from the river banks. The project envisages to abate pollution, maintain ecological flows, develop river front with urbanised areas and explore potential future uses after restoration.

According to the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust (CRRT), the river has become an urban sewer receiving municipal and industrial wastewater as well as solid waste and waste from the slums. This directly results in stretches with depleted dissolved oxygen, as well as raises public health concerns including mosquito breeding in stagnant waters, bad odour and secondary groundwater pollution. The sandbars at the river mouth restrict the littoral drift, creating a lack of tidal exchange in the river.