Lakes catering to city drying up fast

Water managers are now keeping their fingers crossed on how to meet the drinking water needs of the city this summer and the subsequent months till the monsoon sets in. 

“The level in these lakes has come down sharply. Further, he discharge from all the lakes for drinking water needs is also bringing down the storage. Going by the present position, the level in all the lakes has decreased by five to seven feet and this will further go down by another 10 feet in May and June when the summer will be at its peak,” said a PWD official adding, “besides this, considerable quantity of water will get wasted during supply and due to precipitation.” Another major blow is the desilting process that is under way in the Veeranam lake.  

Though the decline of water has given jitters to the water managers, the PWD officials are confident that they would be able to manage the situation with the available quantity in the four major lakes till August.“At present, we are managing with the storage available in Poondi, Cholavaram, Red Hills and Chembarambakkam lakes,” said another PWD engineer. 

If at all, water scarcity arises it might happen only after August that too only in some parts of the city, the engineer said and added that they expect good amount of rains during summer and southwest monsoon, which may replenish the lakes. 

Similarly, the level in the major irrigation dams is also coming down steadily. In fact, storage level recorded in reservoirs in some southern districts has fallen down to less than the average storage in the last 10 years. 

Of the 31 reservoirs in the region under Central Water Commission (CWC) monitoring with the total live storage capacity of 51.59 billion cubic metres (BCM), the storage now is just 6.98 BCM which is 14% of total storage capacity of these reservoirs. 

It may be noted that while the storage during corresponding period last year was 23%, the average storage of last ten years was 24%.As per data the storage in irrigation reservoirs noted gradual decline in many reservoirs. The level in Mettur dam stood at 53.28 feet against Full Reservoir Level (FRL) of 120 feet with water being released only for the drinking water needs of the delta districts. 

Storage in Papanasam, Manimuthar and Servalur dams was also witnessing a decline. Since the catchment areas of these three dams are in the Western Ghats, only timely rain during the southwest monsoon could improve the storage level. 

“If there is any delay in the onset of southwest monsoon, ‘kar’ paddy cultivation in about 38,000 acres in Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi districts will be affected,” a revenue official in Tirunelveli told DT Next.