Eco Friends : Welcomes French Journalists

CARA MYERS, AN INTERN WITH ECO FRIENDS, SHARES HER EXPERIENCES

(2009)

Cara Myers, undergraduate student at Middlebury College, USA. The following accounts my experience as an intern for nine days (July 26- Aug. 03, 2009) with Eco Friends.

Growing up among the natural beauties of forests, lakes and mountains, I have always valued the environment. And so as I begin my undergraduate degree in the US, environmental issues are a key concern for me. Therefore, over the summer I decided to visit India and the river Ganga as an exploration of a pivotal environmental issue in a developing country.
The river Ganga holds a special place among rivers in the world. It sustains millions of people and other organisms and was the site of some of the world’s most ancient civilizations. The Ganga is sacred to over one billion Hindus who worship the river as a deity and as a connection to heaven.

I started my journey in Kanpur, one of the biggest cities along the Ganga. Currently, the provincial government has allocated a good deal of funds (taxpayer money) towards beautification of the bathing ghats along the banks of the Ganga in Kanpur. Much construction is being done and the point is to renovate these historical areas where Hindus come to perform rituals and worship. But nowhere else is the situation so paradoxical. For while the slabs of red stone are being laid down, replacing the crumbling steps of the older ghats, the Ganga flows sluggishly past, so polluted that it is not even safe to bathe in the water; the same water that is revered for its pureness and cleansing properties. The very reason why the ghats were even built in the first place is being destroyed in the modern era.

If you look to one side of the ghat, just within 200 yards, you’ll see a giant muck-filled drain emptying sewage and effluent waste water from industries into the Ganga. This water was supposed to be treated in one of the various sewage or effluent treatment plants before emptying into the Ganga, but its stench and darkish color alone are evidence that somewhere along the system, something’s just not working properly.

On the other side of the ghat you look upstream and see the barrage, a mighty, dam-like structure that controls the flow of the river. During the lean season this means that hardly any water passes through the barrage and the water level drops so low that pollution levels are escalated even higher.

Everyone knows that the river is polluted. The number of Hindus who go to take a dip in their sacred river has declined markedly. Some people (especially the poor) still use the water for bathing and even drinking purposes, but it is for lack of a better alternative. When I spoke to some of the people living in a slum on the river’s banks, (right next to one of the biggest drains), even these people will tell you that the river is polluted. But they need water and have no other option. I spoke with a group of high school students and they as well said that the river was highly polluted and was unsafe to use. They talked about how this was due to a number of human activities, including dead body dumping, submersing religious idols in the water, polythene bags and other trash. And scientists too will tell you about the toxic wastes, harmful bacteria, solid wastes, and other disease-related organisms that can be detected in the water. Everyone concurs that that river Ganga is polluted. But the degree of pollution, those responsible for it, and what to do about it is not so harmoniously agreed upon- these questions are where the water really gets murky.

The Ganga Action Plan, a government action plan initiated over two decades ago has still not brought tangible improvement to the pollution levels of the Ganga. Neither have countless other initiatives. Indeed, as population and industrialization have increased; the river has deteriorated even further.

I have been able to identify two kinds of polluters, those who do it because it’s easy, and those who do it inadvertently because they have no other choice. In both cases, a lot of the problem is due to lack of infrastructure, management and enforcement. Although there are sewage treatment plants, they aren’t able to deal with the amount of sewage or they break down or they clog up and in one way or another they prove dysfunctional. Tanneries and other industries which dump their toxic waste water into the Ganga should be made to ensure that their water is properly dealt with and if not, they should be shut down and made to clean up the mess. But that doesn’t happen. There are two sides to every issue and the solutions to both these problems are much more complex. Kanpur’s economy depends on these industries and shutting them down would mean the loss of thousands of jobs and the owners pressure the government to let them keep polluting (one factory I saw was actually owned by a politician). Plus, it takes a lot of money to fix the entire sewer system for a city of millions and to install technology that effectively cleans toxic water. But in reality it’s much, much more costly to not do so.

Everyone is suffering from the pollution of the Ganga; there are health problems, and a negative affect on the environment’s life giving ability. To add up the entire societal cost of a polluted Ganga would in reality be immensely higher than the funds necessary to install better equipment and reduce pollution. But the burden of the cost is carried by different people. The government and industrial owners (those with the most power) would be paying most of the cost for fixing the problems. Yet they can escape the direct effect of polluted Ganga water while the poorer members in society are left to languish in it, disempowered and marginalized. There is an immense societal disparity that results from this and the poverty of millions is perpetuated by a polluted Ganga- is that not a huge cost on its own?

So what if we just resign ourselves to letting the Ganga become a drain? Maybe its too hard to clean up and we should just rely on other water sources. But an important resource like water and a system as vast as the Ganga is not something that stays contained within itself. Its effects are much more widespread. Ganga water is used for irrigation; the food you eat is grown from that polluted water. And crop production is decreasing as well due to the toxicity of the water. Groundwater cannot be relied upon either, for that too is contaminated. I visited a village whose pumps produced yellow-greenish water contaminated by chromium that has been dumped by a nearby factory. And there are many more villages like this. Once again, the cost of pollution for these village people is very high, yet nothing gets done about it.

Many people blame the government for their problems, and to a degree this is very valid- the government has the resources and influence necessary to implement the large-scale changes that can curb the pollution. Yet when I asked the group of high school students who was responsible for improving the quality the Ganga, they all said in unison, “Individuals.” It is individuals who will protest, who will make the issue too significant for the government to ignore. It is individuals who make a clean Ganga a priority, for themselves, their families, and their communities. Thus actions at the lower levels are still critical. Research institutions, NGOs, and educational groups are all capable for creating the building blocks for a solution to a problem that the government can no longer neglect.

As my journey continues and I travel north to where the Ganga begins in the Himalayas, no doubt I will see an entirely different view of the Ganga, one that is pristine and beautiful. Yet while the head of the Ganga is exquisite, her body has been maimed and the sickness affects her entirety. To worship a river is not to worship just a tiny part of it and then contaminate and exploit the rest. So let us move forward and give the Ganga the medicine she so desperately needs.