Did you know that March 22nd is world water day ? Recently, i got a chance to visit my alma mater (Gitam, where i got my bachelors engineering degree), to attend a conference on water related issues. The agenda is mostly technical in nature — water treatment and sanitation technologies, industrial waste treatment, water quality case studies, rain water harvesting, etc etc. Although i wasn’t very interested in specific technical solutions, it was an opportunity to study our general philosophy in solving a problem which fits into the broader theme of sustainability. Thankfully, the speakers were from a wide ranging background — students to academics to NGO’s to civil servants to industry. All in all, a satisfying day of learning for me (and worth the 300 rupees i shelled down 
).
Just a few tidbits:
- One of the speakers was T.Shivaji rao, a veteran academician and environmentalist. In all his wisdom, he chose to focus on the broader sustainability theme, and on the spiritual aspects of the issue rather than on the technical. He spoke of “plants and all life endowed with universal energy”, “natural resources as embodiments of divine” and asserted that one needs an “awakened mind and a sensitive heart” to understand the deeper issues underlying environmental problems. Like five blind men touching different parts of an elephant, we will not get to the heart of the issue as long as we don’t taken an integrated philosophical approach.
(Source Gutenberg)
- Prakasam Tata, of NGO Bharathi Theertha, spoke passionately about importance of water to civilizations, and our duty to protect it. The energy that he displayed at young age of 72 is amazing. He’s a native of neighboring vizianagaram, and settled in Illinois, USA., but continues to work on water related issues in his native place.
- Phyto technologies: Using plants and micro organisms to remove toxic metals and industrial chemicals, or to treat saline water for irrigation purposes. From what i understood, some plants just naturally absorb certain chemicals, or salts. So you just plant them at appropriate locations to get the desired effect. This was interesting “green” technology from plant sciences field. Related quotes from my notes: “plants absorbing arsenic”. “Genetic engineering of rice to withstand brackish water”.
- A study was presented on amount of fluoride in ground water in coastal areas of vizag city (my neighborhood). I got a chance to catch the presenter during tea break and ask him if fluoride in water is natural or from industrial effluence. Its natural, he said (atleast in vizag) . water catches fluoride as it travels through the rocks to settle at the water table. ( For what its worth, I drink boiled municipal tap water).
- Another study to measure Iodine in ground water in vizag city. Iodine content in some areas is more than (WHO ?) recommended and less in some areas. One of the discussion points was, why then iodized salt recommended to everyone ?. People should consume iodized salt depending on their ground water iodine content.
- Rep from Byrraju foundation talked about water purification plants they setup in tens of villages. You can read more about their process here.
- Ram Koderu (from Illinois, USA.., representing some NGO) talked about sustainable development in general. One of his ideas was that if people in India are afraid to complain about dumping of toxics in waters, for fear of retribution, we should setup webcams to monitor waters and outsource the monitoring effort to USA. So, a person sits in Tuscon, Arizona and monitors water pollution in India. I initially thought he was joking, but then i realized he was serious !!! Sigh … over engineering.
- An idea presented towards decreasing pesticide pollution in water, is to need lesser usage of pesticides by “enhancing immune systems of plants” so that plants resist pathogens through “systemic acquired resistance”. From the paper abstract: “It has been observed that the legume seeds and rice seedlings treated with salicylic acid not only showed higher root and shoot growth but also resistance to several bacterial and fungal pathogens. The strategy has great potential in inducing disease resistance in plants and can be integrated into IPM (Integrated Pest Management ?) programmes minimizing the use of pesticides thereby reducing water pollution”.
- “Think global. Act local”. We all heard this. Exnora international is further zeroing in on the starting point. “Do domestically”. Exnora founder M.B.Nirmal gave a looong presentation about their activities starting with home solutions. What you do with solid waste .. both organic and inorganic. What you do with water waste. rain water. growing garden on terrace ! lots of good practical stuff for home and community.
- The guy from local Vizag steel plant gave a presentation on how the plant is meeting its water requirements, treating waste water etc. I did not know making steel required so much water. Vizag steel plant itself gets water from Yeleru river, a tributary of Godavari, from some 150 km away.
- Nice quote i picked up from one of the presentations: “The trees are Gods great alphabet. With them He writes in shining green. Across the world His thoughts serene” — Leonora Speyer
- Biodegradation of plastics and polythene’s from Mangrove soil. Apparently, mangrove soils are rich in bacteria and fungi which are capable of degrading plastics. Scalable solution ?
- I got a chance to talk to a few people. Over lunch, had a chat with an engineering student from Vellore, who is interested in energy issues. We discussed about wind energy pros and cons. He wants to work as a generic “energy consultant” , and insulate himself from specific technologies, as they are still evolving. He plans to be on the services side just deploying whatever technology is successful in the market. In the city bus on the way back home, i caught up with an engineer who works in a private power generation company. We talked about cap-and-trade mechanism and the need to set the bar at the right level for this solution to work.
