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Increasing Wasa water pumps increasing risks and worries

Raihan Sabuktagin
In the wake of rapidly increasing water demand in the city, Dhaka Wasa is raising the number of pumps to lift underground water despite being aware of the dan gers of depleting groundwater table.
The increasing number of pumps and subsequent depletion of groundwater table increases the risk of disasters like landslide, subsidence and earthquake, experts said.
Since January 2007, Wasa has installed 29 new water pumps and added 15 crore litres of water to the daily supply.
During the period, Wasa reset 59 water pumps. Besides, six new pumps are being Installed and work on resetting 11 pumps is about to finish.
Wasa collects 153 crore litres of water from ground through a total of 489 water pumps. Each of the pumps lifts 3,000 litres of water in a minute.
The daily water demand in the city is about 200 crore litres while Wasa supplies 180 crore litres, leaving a shortage of 20 crore litres.
The pumps extracts 85 percent of the daily water supply from underground while the rest 15 percent comes from the two water treatment plants.
Due to such a high rate of water extraction, underground water level is going down by 7 to 10 feet every year in different places in the city.
Wasa is now conducting a survey to know the state of the underground water table. The survey is likely to be finished by December next.
An engineer ofWasa said poor water sources management is tiie key reason behind mindless lifting of underground waste.
He said the engineers are well aware of the situation of groundwater level in the city but they are forced to dig as deep as 1,000 feet for lifting water.
The engineer said more use of surface water is a must to check the rapid depletion of groundwater table but the policymakers do not think about it.
Only one surface water treatment plant has been set up since 1997 in the city that covers only 12.5 percent of the daily water supply. In the meantime Wasa has to set at least 264 pumps to extract groundwater.
The Wasa engineer said the government is planning to set up more surface water treatment plants in the city but it is time consuming. Setting up of a water treatment plant requires at least 5 years time.
The proposed treatment plants will help Wasa meet the rising water demand after 5 years but Wasa has no plan to stop lifting groundwater. The pumps will continue to lift water, emptying the underground.
The Wasa engineer said with setting up of more and more deep water pumps, the density of such pumps reached such a level that many pumps will fail to lift water as per their capacity very soon.
However, Raihanul Abedin,
added.
The Wasa managing director blamed filling up of low and wetlands of the city for the grad ual depletion of underground water level. He said filling up of wetlands obstructs recharging of groundwater.
He said under the present circumstances, Wasa cannot slop lifting groundwater using pumps. He however expressed hope that steps will be taken in future to save the city's groundwater.
Dr Md Hussain Monsur, professor of Geology Department at Dhaka University, said such mindless lifting of water from underground is suicidal for the city because it is increasing the risks of landslides and earth-
quakes.
“Wasa is emptying the groundwater reserve instead of using the surface water. On other hand, rapid filling up of the low and wetlands lessen the scope of recharging underground water," he said.
The empty underground could prompt earthquake and landslide in the city, he cautioned. “Even a 3-centimetre subsidence of the city surface would cause a disaster to the city structure,” he said.
Dr Monsur blamed the policymakers for increasing the disaster risks. “The planners are following the easiest way to collect water and thus pushing the city into greater risks of disasters,” he added.
managing director of Wasa, said there is no reason to be worried about the water crisis as the government is implementing the second phase of Sayedabad surface water treatment plant.
He said the second phase of Sayedabad plant will add 22.5 crore litres of water with the daily supply within next five years.
The government has also planned to set up another surface water treatment plant at Khilkhet where water will be brought from the river Meghna. This plant will add 50 crore litres of water a day, Abedin