Pollution of the river Noyyal, Tamil Nadu

Swaminathan (2014) has discussed the case of water pollution of the Noyyal river by the discharge of industrial effluents from textile dyeing and bleaching units located in the Tiruppur cluster, in Tamil Nadu. In addition, the river and its tributaries also received untreated sewage. The discharge into the river was allowed, over time, to accumulate into the Orathupalayam dam built on the river. The dam, which was completed in 1992, was able to service the agriculture sector for a very short span up to 1995—96. Thereafter, the polluted water accumulating in the dam became a source of land degradation, yield reduction and ground water contamination, which had an adverse impact on the health of the villagers, their cattle and livelihood. The Farmers’ Association approached the Madras High Court to take action against the polluting units and an interim order was passed on 6 March 1997, directing the closure of 114 units until they installed pollution control devices and obtained the consent of the PCB. The order also required the setting up of CETPs before 10 June 1997. The polluting units filed a joint memo to contribute an amount decided by the court towards damages caused and the cleaning up of the dam. The final orders in the case were passed on 26 February 1998. However, in practice, nothing was achieved.

The Farmers’ Association approached the court again via writ petition (numbers 29791 and 39368 of 2003), seeking enforcement of the joint memo dated

11 February 1998. The court appointed an expert committee⁵ to suggest ways and means to clean the stored water and release the treated water into the river, remove the sludge that had accumulated in the dam area without delay and devise an immediate action plan for the remediation of the Noyyal river and the prevention of the discharge of polluted trade effluents into the river. Some of the observations of the committee were: The TNPCB didn’t have any exact information about the actual quantum of effluents flowing into the river and the actual flow into the reservoir; there were leakages in the spillway gate; the river sluice shutter was completely corroded due to storage of polluted water for many years; there was lack of co-ordination between the government departments contributing to the continuing problem of pollution, etc. The committee filed 19 reports in the court until October 2011. The major recommendations included: Releasing the polluted water from the Orathupalayam dam during the monsoon season to achieve dilution and prevent pollution problems downstream in the Noyyal river; installation of reverse osmosis (RO) plants and multiple effect evaporator (MEE) as tertiary treatment to ensure zero discharge from the polluting units and CETPs, setting up of sewage treatment plants (STPs), incremental fines on the non-complying CETPs till December 2006 and if they still continued to be non-compliant, then shutting down of the CETP and its member units. In compliance with the committee’s recommendations, the polluted water from the dam was released in August 2005. By October 2011, there were two categories of dyeing and bleaching units in Tiruppur—the first ones were those that had installed the RO plants to ensure zero discharge and the second ones were those that had not. Hence, the committee, during its visits from 2006 through 2011, observed that untreated water continued to flow into the river with colour and odour. The inspections also revealed that most industries were not treating the effluent but discharging it into the river. The interest of the communities in and around the Noyyal river and those dependent on the river continued to be harmed. The compensation to the affected farmers could not be disbursed as some of the industries filed a writ petition in the High Court against recovery of dues from them. On the positive side, the quality of well water improved after the depletion of the dam water. Despite this, farmers were apprehensive that any decision to impound the polluted water in the dam in the future would reverse the improvement and, therefore, wanted the arrangement of keeping the shutters of the dam open until all the industries ensured zero discharge. The fear of the farmers was not misplaced as the effluent would seep in, causing irreversible damage to ground water. To reclaim the degraded land, experiments were started to plant certain species of trees that absorbed polluted water from the ground and evaporated it. The author believes that the committee’s attempt to rid the Noyyal river of its pollutants can be treated as an effort to find harmony between economic and environmental interactions rather than developing sustainability in the ecological sense. In terms of sustainability, the approach by Handmer & Dovers (1996)⁶ is found to be more relevant in this case. Their approach states that there could be a clear acknowledgement that the present system is not sustainable and that change is needed. The rhetoric would be there, but only minor changes occur, largely directed at alleviating symptoms.

The courts have cited the ‘precautionary principle,’ the ‘polluter pays principle’ and the ‘sustainable development principle’ while delivering landmark judgements in pollution-related cases. A further discussion of these principles is presented in the following paragraphs.