The Messy Clean-Up of Dal Lake

By Chad Heeter, AlterNet. Posted July 9, 2005.

With the backdrop of the Himalayas reflecting in still water and colorful gondola-like shikaras ferrying passengers across its surface, Dal Lake in India's Kashmir Valley provides visitors with classic postcard vistas. Swathes of vegetation blanket the lake in intense green patches, accented by pink and white lotus flowers popping up in full bloom. Small white-breasted kingfishers dart along the surface. And at the same time a call to prayer echoes across the water from Srinagar's lakeside Hazratbal Mosque.

But take a closer look and the idyllic scene begins to unravel. Those brilliant green swathes of vegetation are actually caused by pollution. Researchers estimate 18 million liters (4,755,000 gallons) of raw sewage flow into the lake each day, and the unhealthy influx of nutrients, mostly nitrogen and phosphorus, acts as a super-fertilizer. The result is an explosive growth of duckweed, water ferns, and algae that eventually depletes the water of the oxygen vital to fish and other aquatic life. Add to this a drainage system constantly clogged with muck, along with little wind to aerate the water, and the result, researchers say, is a lake in peril.

The state government of Jammu-Kashmir has been aware of the pollution for decades, but little progress on the cleanup has occurred because of the 16 year-old conflict between separatist Muslim militants and Indian forces. And though explosions from militant attacks still pierce the air, tourists are slowly returning, with last year bringing 230,000 tourists, the most since the insurgency began in 1989. And this past spring a new bus route connected Indian Kashmir to Pakistani Kashmir for the first time since 1947.

Now the government is looking toward a more stable future, and revisiting environmental questions formerly left hanging. At a projected cost of $100 million, the Dal Lake clean-up program includes the construction of Srinagar's first modern sewage system and the relocation of an estimated 50,000 people who live within the lake on natural and man-made islands. The authorities insist the lake cannot sustain a population of this size, and have returned to the long-planned project to relocate the "Dal dwellers" to colonies on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Dal dwellers are some of Srinagar's poorest residents, earning on average about $40 per month, according to one NGO's report. The majority of the residents within the lake say they would relocate given proper compensation for their homes and the promise of new employment, as many depend on the lake for jobs, from catering to tourists to farming. When they move to colonies six miles away from the lake and the city center, few opportunities for employment exist. Even with the compensation package they receive from the government, most can't afford to build new houses comparable to those they had on the lake. The government has so far evicted nearly 1,200 of the 4800 families they are set to move to the colonies. But rather than the tidy new communities that had been promised, these colonies are now known as Srinagar's first slums, replete with the stench of open sewage system that drains into Dal, raising questions about just what the relocation has accomplished

Relocated from Bad to Worse

Two years ago, 65 year-old Ghulam Hadr Tand, his wife, and three children were assigned to a colony three miles from Dal. From what the family could bring with them from the lake, Tand built a shack with the sheet metal scraps from their former home. "We were living in impoverished conditions within the lake," says Tand, a carpet weaver by trade. His fingers worked their way across an 8-foot wide loom holding a Kashmiri rug. "We were told we'd have better conditions if we moved out. But we're worse off."

The office in charge of the project, the Lake and Waterways Dal Authority (LAWDA), cites the relocation plan as the opportunity of a lifetime for the 50,000 Dal dwellers. Along the roadside heading toward their office on the lake are a few rusting signs that plea "Save Dal Lake" -- promotions from past clean-up campaigns. "The packages have been very nice," said Aijaz Rasool, a scientist at LAWDA. "The colonies have amenities as good as the city has."

But that's hardly the way most residents of the colonies see it.

In front of 48 year-old Ghulam Nabinanda's 1000-square foot cement home raw sewage flows in the dirt road. He built it in 2003 for his family of 10, using the entire $2,000 payment he received from the government. "No, there is a lack of amenities here," Nabinanda says, "and most importantly there are also no jobs." In order to get a fair assessment of his lake property he also says he had to bribe a government official.

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Chad Heeter is a freelance filmmaker and journalist in Berkeley, California. He is currently editing a short film about Southern India's farmer suicides for Frontline World's Rough Cut.

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