Sewage of 50,000 residents flows into Coonoor River, treatment plant remains a pipe dream, say activists

Despite many years of local conservationists pushing for the setting up of a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Coonoor to clean the town’s sewage before it mixes with the river, the government still lacks a definitive plan to set up such a plant.

Despite many years of local conservationists pushing for the setting up of a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) in Coonoor to clean the town’s sewage before it mixes with the river, the government still lacks a definitive plan to set up such a plant.

Local conservationists have pointed out that the river used to be a key source of water for local elephant populations that utilize the Coonoor ghat, and that due to its being polluted, elephants completely avoid drinking from it now. They say that the contamination of the river is driving elephants up the slopes in search of cleaner sources of water near the Hillgrove and Adderly Railway Stations, to smaller, cleaner streams that drain into the river.

P.J. Vasanthan, trustee from local NGO, ‘Clean Coonoor’, that undertook the Herculean task of completely cleaning up a portion of the river that flows through part of Coonoor town, said that when the British had set up the sewage system to drain into the river, the town had an estimated population of around 5,000 people. “Now, the population has ballooned to 10 times what it was when the British planned it, with over 50,000 residents’ sewage flowing directly into the river,” he said.

Some residential areas located close to the river also use it to defecate into, it, while local residents allege that chicken waste and offal from meat shops in the town are also dumped into the water body.

S. Manogaran, president of the Coonoor Consumer Protection Association, said that more than 90 percent of the residential buildings inside the town don’t have septic tanks. “This open draining of sewage into the river over many years has created a culture among residents themselves, who feel that it is okay to divert all their sewage into the river,” he said, adding that even municipality-run toilets have drain pipes that lead into the river.

“It is due to the complete failure of the local municipality and politicians that the river is so polluted. It flows downstream and has a huge impact on wildlife as well as people who live further downstream, who depend on it (once it flows into the Bhavani River) as a source of drinking water,” said Mr. Manogaran.