Water Shortage – an Open well Rainwater Harvesting solution.

 

These are the days of water shortage. Krishnarajasagar (KRS dam on the Cauvery) is at an all time low in water level. Water rationing is round the corner.

 

Bangalore is well known for its open wells. So why don’t we revive and take care of our open wells?  Places like Malleswaram, Basavanagudi, Jayanagar and VV puram have large wells in the gardens of houses.

 

Of course, many old houses have been demolished giving way to apartment blocks. These depend on borewells and tanker supplies for their water needs. Occasionally BWSSB water is supplied.

 

I have a house in Jayanagar which is 50 years old. I have a well which is 35 feet deep and about 3 feet in diameter. Many years ago – around 15 years ago I installed rooftop Rain water harvesting structures. I collect around 1 lakh litres of rainwater each year of  three rainy seasons. I filter the collected water from the roof and feed it to the well. In about two weeks of rainfall, the well is full of filtered water. The attached photos will show the well brimming with water. These photos were taken last season.

 

I have estimated that I consume around 40,000 litres of water  each year from the well. The remaining 60,000 litres feed the ground water acquifers.  This is a substantial amount of water both for home consumption as well as ground water recharging. During the rainy season I am happy to shut off the BWSSB supply valve. When I use well water for all our needs, I not only save on my BWSSB bills but also precious Cauvery water which is now available for other users. 

 

The rain water harvesting solution is simple and one can do it oneself. It is a self help aid. The cost involved is only for the PVC pipes and filter. In my case I did the plumbing work myself.

 

I wish other citizens of our State help themselves and become self reliant as regards water needs. 

 

Kindly publicise and popularise this concept so that we can overcome the present water crisis.

 

Thanking you,

 

S. Chandra Shekar.

Apart from prayers there should be a Plan B for a low monsoon. What is that? As of now it is not clear that the city has a Plan A let alone a Plan B to distribute water to reach all its citizens. However here is what a Plan B could look like.

Make rainwater harvesting mandatory for all buildings in the city. The lesser the rain that falls on the city, the more precious the water that will be harvested and put to productive use. Every building should become a contributor to the water requirement of the city rather than only placing a demand on it.

Take up de-silting and improvement of all the tanks in the city on a war footing. Here is an opportunity masquerading as a crisis. When citizens have realized the scarcity of water it is for the government to wake up and make plans which are implementable in the short run and which focus on storing water and increasing the groundwater table to recharge the aquifer as and when it rains.

Make it mandatory for all parks and medians to use treated waste-water only. Stop the wasteful use of fresh groundwater in the 1000 or more parks in the city and use the bore-well water to supply it for domestic requirements. There is plenty of treated waste-water in the city which is not being used and the opportunity presents itself to put this to good use for construction activities also such as the metro and the large apartments being built in the city.

Quickly implement the groundwater bill and make sure that groundwater is treated and used as a community property resource rather than as a private good. Take over the large yielding bore-wells and make them part of the city distribution. Every bore-well must be mandated to have a recharge structure and as much of rainwater as possible to be recharged into the ground.

Storm-water drains must be made sewage free and those that are made sewage free should then have recharge structures in them to ensure that storm-water too is put to productive use.

Apartments and layouts – They play an important part in demand management and reducing demand by 20 % should be easy. Metering of each flat should be taken up quickly as is putting the waste-water treatment plants to good use. Treated waste-water must become the first charge for non-potable use and layouts must be mandated to put them into place and start using them immediately.

Watering of lawns and washing of vehicles should be banned and a social mobilization created against such waste quickly.

Individual homes:  My friend from the neighbourhood and 14 years old Aravind suggests that school- children should be involved in water conservation efforts by their parents. One bucket of water for a bath is enough he says. By not getting clothes dirty much water can be saved in washing them and he also suggests that boys should clean their own plates and cups with as less water as possible in homes and schools.

The fragility of our water systems, their dependence on rain  and the linkages of tanks and lakes and groundwater is clear to us. A crisis they is also spelled as opportunity in Chinese Mandarin. Will we make use of the opportunity? Will we put in place a Plan B ?

Apart from prayers there should be a Plan B for a low monsoon. What is that? As of now it is not clear that the city has a Plan A let alone a Plan B to distribute water to reach all its citizens. However here is what a Plan B could look like.

Make rainwater harvesting mandatory for all buildings in the city. The lesser the rain that falls on the city, the more precious the water that will be harvested and put to productive use. Every building should become a contributor to the water requirement of the city rather than only placing a demand on it.

Take up de-silting and improvement of all the tanks in the city on a war footing. Here is an opportunity masquerading as a crisis. When citizens have realized the scarcity of water it is for the government to wake up and make plans which are implementable in the short run and which focus on storing water and increasing the groundwater table to recharge the aquifer as and when it rains.

Make it mandatory for all parks and medians to use treated waste-water only. Stop the wasteful use of fresh groundwater in the 1000 or more parks in the city and use the bore-well water to supply it for domestic requirements. There is plenty of treated waste-water in the city which is not being used and the opportunity presents itself to put this to good use for construction activities also such as the metro and the large apartments being built in the city.

Quickly implement the groundwater bill and make sure that groundwater is treated and used as a community property resource rather than as a private good. Take over the large yielding bore-wells and make them part of the city distribution. Every bore-well must be mandated to have a recharge structure and as much of rainwater as possible to be recharged into the ground.

Storm-water drains must be made sewage free and those that are made sewage free should then have recharge structures in them to ensure that storm-water too is put to productive use.

Apartments and layouts – They play an important part in demand management and reducing demand by 20 % should be easy. Metering of each flat should be taken up quickly as is putting the waste-water treatment plants to good use. Treated waste-water must become the first charge for non-potable use and layouts must be mandated to put them into place and start using them immediately.

Watering of lawns and washing of vehicles should be banned and a social mobilization created against such waste quickly.

Individual homes:  My friend from the neighbourhood and 14 years old Aravind suggests that school- children should be involved in water conservation efforts by their parents. One bucket of water for a bath is enough he says. By not getting clothes dirty much water can be saved in washing them and he also suggests that boys should clean their own plates and cups with as less water as possible in homes and schools.

The fragility of our water systems, their dependence on rain  and the linkages of tanks and lakes and groundwater is clear to us. A crisis they is also spelled as opportunity in Chinese Mandarin. Will we make use of the opportunity? Will we put in place a Plan B ?

A brilliant, brilliant piece.

Under a new set of projects additional waste-water treatment plants are being put up yet they may prove to be inadequate. On the other hand when one looks at smaller wastewater systems the city has more than 2000 of them according to Dr Anant Kodavasan, a member of an expert committee looking into the issue. Many of them are however are either dysfunctional or are performing below par. The installed capacity of these systems are close to 200 million litres per day, a significant volume.

The best bet is for all the apartments and institutions that have these plants to get them evaluated and brought into efficient performance levels. The cost of the treated waste-water ready for use as non-potable water could vary between Rs 18 to Rs 30 a kilo-litre , significantly less than the water being purchased from private water tankers.

The State Pollution Control Board insists on every apartment or layout which has more than 80 flats to have its own waste-water treatment plant. If these plants are located well , not hidden in basements, they consume less energy , treat water well and produce quality good enough to be used for flushing toilets and for the landscape. A systematic re-evaluation of these plants is therefore necessary to fit them into the overall strategy of managing waste-water in the city.

The other advantage with these systems such as the one in the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, a hospital in the southern part of the city , is that they produce not only treated wastewater for reuse but also other byproducts such as biogas for cooking and bio-sludge manure for gardening. As Dr Ravishankar the designer of the system explains ‘ these plants not only look well, there is no odour and there is no waste. All byproducts are reused and the system pays back for itself in 4 to 4 and a half years.”

With some treatment plants there is an excess of waste-water available on site. A system of sharing between apartments has to evolve and a market for its distribution created. ITC –Windsor Manor for example is able to give its treated wastewater to the golf club opposite since it has more than its requirement. These markets need to evolve further and should be facilitated by the BWSSB and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board.

Apartment owners, layout residents and institutions are doing the right ecological and economic thing by installing these WWTP’s for not only do they save money they ensure that the environment is not polluted. Investing in R and D , developing better models for operations and maintenance and better consumer education will go a long way in ensuring better water management for the city.

With a vast majority of houses not connected to the main sewage lines in Bangalore the only recourse is to build septic tanks to receive waste water. Apartments on the outskirts too have septic tanks. Some house do away with this and build large soak pits, simple holes in the ground which receive the waste water and collect the solids but allow the liquids to leach away.

These septic tanks and soak pits are highly polluting, transferring the nitrates and pathogens into the groundwater aquifer and contaminating it severely. Most borewells in Bangalore report high nitrate even to the depth of 600 feet. All the nitrate contamination comes from domestic sewage primarily.

Alternatives

But there are many good alternatives emerging for the septic tank. One of them is called the DEWATS or the decentralised waste water treatment system. This in a broad sense is a major improvement on the septic tank with several up-flow chambers to promote anaerobic digestion. The treated waste water then comes to a reed bed chamber which makes use of sand filtration and reed bed treatment which takes up the nutrient load from the liquid effluent. Ultimately the remaining liquid is collected in a polishing pond and can be used for landscape use.

Eco-san or ecological sanitation systems is another alternative. Here the liquid and solid waste in a toilet are collected separately. The liquid which has a major component of nutrients and very little pathogens is often used as a soil nutrient or fertilizer. The solids which have a high degree of pathogens is collected separately and carefully composted to eliminate all the pathogens before being used as a soil fertilizer.

Waste water recycling plants are also coming into the market at an apartment scale and not yet at a domestic scale. These generally digest the organic load in the wastewater through a process of anaerobic digestion. After filtration and further treatment such as UV the remaining liquid is of sufficient quality to be used in landscapes or in gardens.

All these systems have the potential of reusing the nutrient value of what we term ‘waste.’ They also reuse the water for non-potable purpose and prevent pollution of soil and water.

Specially designed

But what if you already are using a septic tank or have a soak pit which is full? In Bangalore recently one sees a small spurt in specialised vehicles which make available the service of cleaning these filled septic tanks or soak pits. For a sum of Rs.1,300 or thereabouts, these vehicles, specially designed in Andhra Pradesh, will come to your doorstep and in a matter of 20 minutes empty your septic tank, sucking all the waste into the tanker through specially designed pumps. They will then transport the waste to the nearest treatment plant of the BWSSB for further processing or will ship it to the nearest agriculturist who will then use the manure rich in nitrates and phosphates.

Better process

Earlier, cleaning of the septic tank was a smelly, gut-wrenching process, dehumanising with respect to those who cleaned it and leaving a scar in the entire neighbourhood.

Nowadays, with entrepreneurship and modern technology, it has become easy to solve the problem. This is one sector where privatisation seems welcome.

Now, if a safe handling and disposal protocol is built, it will make the handling of waste in the city cleaner and more hygienic, stop pollution of the soil and the aquifers and make city living a more pleasant experience. More power then to these technologies and the people who make it happen.

Creating a business where opportunity exists and doing so to provide service to the community is but one small step in water wisdom. Managing wastewater is protecting fresh water and the water wise know that.

In the warm month of March, one saw boys diving and swimming in the rather green waters and having a whale of a time. The high groundwater table in the town ensures that there is water for swimming. Clearly the festival of Holi is an everyday event here in the well.

Water in a town is not to be seen and planned only as a functional engineering construct meant to flow through pipes and be distributed by pumps. Water is a recreational, aesthetic, ecological and even spiritual a material.

Swimming pools are few and far between in India and for many a luxury they can ill afford. Hundreds of boys and girls in rural India and in small and medium towns have therefore learnt the art of swimming in open, dug wells. With a declining water table there are no more swimming lessons to be learnt and fun had. An entire generation has lost a very significant experience of water. This is so with the polluted rivers and lakes too. Mulbagal has discovered a treasure serendipitously.

Close by to the town we come across a full well of water. A tank above stores and recharges water from a rock catchment and recharges the aquifer. A villager informs us that the name of the well is round well . It is always full and people come from miles to just have a swim and enjoy the pleasure of dunking oneself and splashing in its blue-green waters.

Is there a value attached to such human activities and their loss through a collapsing water table ? Should we not attach the same importance to the non-functional aspects of water which are good for the soul rather than only concentrating on the functional aspects of consumption in taps?

The festival of Holi came and went. With drought prevailing in many parts of the country there were calls for muted celebrations and to play ‘dry’ Holi.  For children and the young the essence of Holi is the splashing of coloured water on each other. Should we as a society go on a guilt trip about this one beautiful experience?

In our neighbourhoods, in our villages and in our towns and cities let us plan that there is wise use of water. Let us also plan that our lakes and tanks are full and that our wells have water throughout the year. It is not an impossible task but requires dedication and a vision.

This monsoon be prepared to harvest the rain, in tanks, in lakes and in the aquifers. Individually and collectively let us stop polluting water bodies and treat them with respect.

Let the children have the experience of water which is not of shortage and worry but one of plenty and one of fun. Let them swim in the full wells of life. That would be water wisdom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKl-cVWE4I 

On a trip to Rajasthan near the old abandoned town of Bhangarh I come across a well. This I am told is on community land, no one owns this well. Farmers have got together and installed some diesel pump-sets. Everybody in a radius of a kilometre almost is allowed to share the waters. The pump-set too can be hired and used. A true example of sharing.

Another town called Vijayapura close to Bangalore. Waste-water flows out of the town in a channel. A farmer whose bore-well has gone dry finds an ingenious way to tap into the waste-water and use it for his land. Other farmers downstream now request that he allow some waste-water to flow so that they can use it too. He readily agrees. Sharing waste-water too is possible.

Close to the nieghbourhood there are a series of deep open wells. These were dug in the 1940’s and even as late as 1960’s by hand with great effort. Those who dug the wells are no more but the families and their descendants continue to benefit from the endeavour of their fore-fathers. Grandfather starts, son completes and grandchildren enjoy the fruits of water from wells so goes an old saying. Though the wells are private the water is not and is available for all the families around who need it for drinking and cooking. Indeed a case of inter-generational sharing, as well as current generation sharing of the precious resource called groundwater.

In the early part of the 1900’s there was a great drought in the city. A betel leaf merchant by the name Yele Mallappa Chetty devoted a large part of his earnings and wealth to the construction of a water body called a tank so as to harvest rainwater and provide succor to the people for drinking water as well as for farming needs. Yele Mallappa Chetty kere is on Old Madras Road and its vast water spread a joy to behold.  Yele Mallappa was a water philanthropist and a grateful city must remember him even now.

In the 1920’s another drought struck the city. The only source of water the Hessarghatta reservoir ran dry. Three large tanks upstream which still had water had to be breached so that their waters could fill the Hessarghatta tank and provide drinking water to an already thirsty city. This was done only in consultation with farmers who would lose their crops in the three tanks. The city ensured drinking water to the villages and paid cash compensation to the farmers for giving up their water, a sterling example of water cooperation indeed.

In the modern times people establish water kiosks called ‘Pyaoos’. Free water is distributed to those thirsty especially in the scorching summer months of March, April and May. This is all voluntary action and especially a facet of the Marwari community from Rajasthan. Nothing is more worthy a deed than giving water to people and animals.

Why cannot ‘pyaoos’ be established by some of the large commercial and residential buildings in the city? Water can be provided to passerbys , construction workers et al who would be thirsty in an increasingly dry city. I such efforts of goodwill and compassion beyond us ? Not necessarily so.

There are many bore-wells with hand-pumps in the city. An auto rickshaw driver pumps water from one in Malleswaram and slakes his thirst. He then fills a bottle of water from the same hand-pump and goes to a roadside sampling and waters it. He does this  every day sharing water with a tree.

On the streets a neighbour starts chatting. She puts a small bowl of water replenished every day and kept in a corner providing relief to myriad birds, insects and creatures of nature in a thirsty urban world. She thoroughly enjoys the bio-diversity she gets to see. Many do it out of a sense of selflessness. Can you?

There are acts great and small done with a spirit of community and these acts are their own reward. This World Water Day let us renew our commitment to the spirit that is water , renew our bonds with it and the world that surrounds us, let us share with people who have little access and let us also share with nature so that the web of life is reinforced. That would be water wisdom.

Prodded forever by various well meaning institutions including the Courts a Central Groundwater Authority was constituted, a morphed and rather toothless renaming of the Central Groundwater Board.

Water being a state subject then had to move to the domain of the State which too has very, very reluctantly and with a perfunctory debate in the house has passed the Groundwater Act.

The fundamental criticism of this act is that it does not promise any outcome; say for example safe, sustainable groundwater with the best quality accessible to all. It does not discriminate between a city and its use of groundwater vis-à-vis irrigation use. It merely seeks to enumerate and perhaps restrict with no great logic the commercial use of groundwater as well as prevent its exploitation in so called dark zones. Can it for example deny a citizen in a dark zone a drilling of the well if the state itself is unable to provide water either for drinking or for a livelihood?

Bangalore: The BWSSB already levies a charge for every bore-well in the city for a house or an apartment which has a sewerage connection with it. It calls this a sanitary cess arguing that the waters so used from the bore-wells enters the sewage lines and has to be collected, conveyed and treated. It levies the charge from nearly 180,000 such bore-wells. Why then a re-registration in another form and with another fee?

The BWSSB itself would be best advised to create a groundwater cell. It does not help if there are no hydro-geologists in the organization and leaving it to Engineers is a recipe for disaster.  Once the cell is created and suitably manned it should be set the task to map every sub-aquifer in the city and layer with the micro-watersheds on top. It is important to understand the recharge characteristic of every sub-aquifer, the quantity and quality stress it is subject to and then draw up a suitable management plan to manage the sub-aquifer so that it does not go dry and does not get contaminated.Given remote sensing capabilities the state has this should be a job done at best in a year.

The registered bore-wells in the city should then be mapped and put up on a publicly accessible GIS platform so as to wisely decide on whether fresh bore-wells should be sunk or not even by private individuals. Right now individuals and apartments make the choice of sinking a bore-well with a notion of water security not knowing what is the probability of striking water, at what depth and what will be the life of the bore-well. Huge costs are therefore sunk in infructuous investments which could otherwise have been put to productive sustainable use such as rainwater harvesting or groundwater recharge.

Conclusion: The current groundwater act provides an opportunity to a regime of shared groundwater where recharge and sustainable use based on demand management. It is therefore opportune to work on the knowledge and implementation of such a participatory groundwater regime. Institution building is key and should be the first step instead of a license permit raj.