River to revitalisation

Introducing new sewage treatment practices and providing sewage treatment can transform the lives of residents.

There are two drains that converge under Lahore’s Main Boulevard, immediately next to the McDonald’s. These are pre-Partition storm water drains designed to allow rainfall in the Cantonment to flow out towards the Ravi. One of these flows along the Cantonment’s Allaudin Road, where it is covered. It flows uncovered in the ‘civilian’ side of the city, and it is amazing to see the difference in amenity and property value this simple intervention makes.

Beyond this point of confluence, these drains are met, less than a kilometre away, by the Zafar Ali nullah — another storm water drain — and then siphon under the BRB Canal and onwards past the Punjab Institute of Mental Health, parts of Shadman and past the rear of the old Camp Jail to the Shama Cinema Stop on Ferozepur Road.

Beyond Ferozepur Road, these drains are met with a sewer originating from near the Diyal Singh College behind Laxmi Chowk and the distribution channel that flows from the BRB Canal, past Mayo Gardens and through the Governor’s House and Jinnah Gardens. At this point, all these drains are filled with the sewage and waste of the residential and commercial areas they flow past. The substance that flows in the storm water drain is of a relatively lighter colour than sewage, and at the confluence at the Shama Cinema Stop, the waters of the two flow together, unmixed, for hundreds of yards — like our own version of the White Nile meeting the Blue.

From Shama Cinema, the sewage flows behind the Gulshan Ravi scheme towards Bund Road and, finally, meandering beside the Sabzazar Scheme, is discharged, untreated, into the Ravi. The Gulshan Ravi Outfall is one of five outfalls and two natural surface water drains that, in total, dump untreated domestic, commercial and industrial waste into the riverbed. According to a 1997 study, approximately 18 cubic metres of water per second was dumped into the Ravi and it was estimated that this would double by 2017 (keep in mind that, at the time, the minimum flow of the river was only 11 cubic meters per second). The Ravi, now effectively a sewage drain, flows to the Balloki headworks where the untreated effluent of the entire city is dumped into the irrigation water headed towards southern parts of Punjab.

Across the globe and at another time, in 1938, a massive ‘50-year’ storm caused the Los Angeles River to flood. Normally, Southern California receives very little rain and the river had swindled to a mere trickle. The 1938 flood claimed 87 lives and millions of dollars in damage. In response, the US Corps of Engineers began a 21-year old struggle to encase most of the river in concrete. This concrete river, into which also flow the some of the city’s storm-water drains, has now become one of the icons of Hollywood cinema (some readers may recognise at the set of the chase scenes in Terminator 2), although many mistake it for a drainage ditch with its concrete slopes and no greenery and the fact that, it too, also carries some of the city’s sewage.

In 2002, the Los Angeles City council decided to re-think the river’s relationship to the city. In a city that had 6.2 acres of park space per 1,000 residents, they asked how they could revitalise the city and respect the river as a central part of the landscape. In 2007, the City Council adopted a long-term multi-billion dollar Los Angeles river revitalisation plan and set itself the goals of ecological restoration and management, the creations of recreational spaces, economic development and encouragement of a sense of community around the river.

The provincial and local governments that control Lahore should examine the LA River Project. They need to understand that their public utilities sit over incredible resources. There are, literally, hundreds of kilometres of storm-water drains and nallahs in the city. These are not the only means of disposing of sewage; they are resources that can — and should — be used for the economic and social benefit and improved health of the residents of the city. Introducing new sewage treatment practices and providing sewage treatment at points along these drains can transform the lives of tens of thousands of residents — and millions who live downriver.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2012.