A step from disaster

It's a time bomb ticking away on the eastern fringes of the city. A threat the size of a mountain, just off EM Bypass, the city's prime real estate address. Step close to it and it seems like a Martian setting or a snapshot from hell. Carrion and vultures circle over hills upon hills of garbage, piled higher and higher over three decades. It not only looks scary.It is.
This 40 million-tonne time bomb can explode at a spark, triggering a disaster of unimaginable proportions.
It includes deadly chemicals, toxic medical waste, commercial and household garbage and every kind of rubbish you can think of. The dump now soars 35 metres or over 10 storeys high and is very much a surreal geographic feature: a table-top hill in the middle of the Gangetic plain.
When the Dhapa municipal solid waste (MSW) dump site was created three decades ago, it was the most inexpensive quick-fix to the burgeoning municipal garbage problem. With 1,500 tonne of waste to deal with daily in the early 1980s, the dumpsite in the middle of the marshy wasteland to the east of the city was considered an adequate solution. By the late '80s, the city was generating 2,000 tonnes of MSW daily that shot up to 2,500 tonnes by the mid-'90s and touched 3,000 tonnes at the turn of the century. At present, the city dumps 4,500 tonnes of waste in Dhapa daily, a quantum jump of 1,500 tonne a day in a decade.
The dump site was meant to last two decades, but it was saturated by the mid-'90s. Unable to locate an alternative site, waste continued to be dumped there till it became super-saturated five years ago. Now, well past the breaking point, the mound continues to grow. This year, over 1.5 million tonnes of waste will be dumped there.
"It is already an environmental disaster of immense magnitude. Waste continues to be dumped in an ecologically fragile zone. The waterbodies around the dumpyard have turned toxic and killed off fish. The toxicity is also taking a toll on villagers. They are suffering from skin and stomach diseases," said Dipayan Dey, chair of South Asian Forum for Environment, that is active in the East Kolkata Wetlands.
Leaching of toxic substances has poisoned the groundwater. A study conducted some years ago revealed high metal content in fish and vegetables grown in the belt.
The unstable mound is already cracking. Recently, a huge chunk of debris collapsed, trapping a civic employee. His arm had to be amputated. "Landslides often destroy the road used by trucks to dump waste on the top. A new road has to be relaid every year. The gradient has become so sharp that the trucks are at risk of toppling over," said Sanatan Mondal, a driver of one of the 345 trucks that do the risky trip daily.
A second dump site was planned adjacent to the existing one over a decade ago. It was finally taken up in 2004 under an Asian Development Bank-funded project. Initially, Rs 8 crore was sanctioned for a sanitary landfill spread over 114 hectares, resembling a crater 100 feet deep. It was to be lined to prevent leaching and there was also a plan to tap methane to produce electricity.
But the project fell through when East Kolkata Wetlands was acknowledged as an endangered ecological site.
Even if permission had been granted for the landfill site, it would have been impossible to dislodge the farmers and fishermen who live off the mountain of refuse. Given the Nandigram and Singur experience, the erstwhile Left board did not push matters at Dhapa. "We offered an attractive compensation package but the 500-odd farmers settled there refused to budge," a KMC official remarked. With a Trinamool Congress board now in charge, land acquisition is unlikely to be on the agenda.
Though KMC has managed to get the government's permission for a 14-hectare plot next to Dhapa as a safety valve, it has only five years to locate and acquire alternative sites and develop them scientifically.
A senior KMC official conceded that something needed to be done fast as they had to shut down the present dumping ground and hand it over to the pollution control board by next year. How the KMC intends to do that is anybody's guess but environmentalists who have been crying foul for several years now, will certainly not play mute spectators if the KMC reneges on its commitment.
According to green crusader Subhas Datta, Dhapa's health hazard is bound to spread across the city unless KMC takes urgent steps. "It must get top priority. I have been to the Dhapa dumping ground several times and can say with certainty that it is a time bomb ticking away," he warned.
A plant set up to convert organic waste into fertilizer has been lying closed for a while now. There has been no initiative by KMC to ensure maximum recycling or utilize the bio-degradable waste to generate electricity.
Worried that the Dhapa mound could trigger a major health hazard, Pollution Control Board chief law officer Biswajit Mukherjee said it was imperative to shut it at the earliest. "We have to act before a disaster breaks out," Mukherjee said.