While politicians steal (uncountable zero digits after a normal number) large amount of money, I pray to God that they do something good for their fellow mankind.
One more prayer: We dont need one more senseless war. Praying to bring peace for North and South Korea brothers and sisters.
Just saw a program on how indusries (especially foreign industries) are built by covering dried water bodies. Even though these industrial programs have programs towards greening the environment, they have done everything against environment in building these industries in Sriperumbudur, India.
One future environmental engineer asked me the following question regarding the above blog post:
hello dr.makesh,
Considering your opinion on the Environment Ministry's decision on disallowing Vedanta from mining bauxite in Orissa I have a doubt. Where do you think should we draw a line between environmental importance and economic importance? Since I am new to this field I am still confused what viewpoint to take! I have an opinion that in the name of environmental protection we should not be a barrier to development (in this case bauxite is very important for us too).
Please correct me if I am wrong...
And, my classes have started and I have taken up courses on Solid/hazardous waste management, Chemical Principles of Environmental Design , Environmental Regulations and Policies.
My answer to it:
Thank you for the email. What I am talking about is the greed. We don't have enough forest resources in India. Already deforestation is taking a toll. We need some forest lands to be saved.
I know we need bauxite. If we allow to take the bauxite, do you think our greedy people will stop mining bauxite in limited quantity? NO. They will wipe out the whole area. They will remove the whole hill top, which will affect the environment (soil, land, water, ground water) and affect the climate. This environmental effect also have an economic cost and will easily out number the cost earned by mining.
I am also for economic growth, however it should be sustainable. If they remove hill top and mine, what are the plans to replenish it.
Why India has most tanneries than any other countries?. Is there any tannery or similar industries in Developed nations?. No. Because we just let the effluents directly to the land and do not care about the environment, people (hexavalent chromium is dangerous to people - it affects brain).
Recently I read Indians have the most Swiss bank accounts (more than 1trillion $). If they just spent few percent of that, it will be a most developed nation. Because of greed of money and not caring for our environment, lots of foreign industries are coming into India (on the basis of economic development) and polluting India. We don't have any standards and we do not implement them. Cell phone companies, car companies, etc (long lists) are flocking there. In this case POSCO - a Korea based company is showing interest in our mountains. They have beautiful mountains. Will they remove their hill top? NEVER. What we need to do is - ask them to take care of our environment too. That is what we are lacking. Day by day agricultural lands, forest lands are taken away by industries. It is also becoming dumping ground (I have written so many articles about it). Environmental Pollution will cause more economic damage than what industrial growth economy produces.
Good that you are taking up Solid/hazardous management courses. Regarding Solid waste management - you have to think that prevention is the best option rather than management. But that is not going to happen in the near future. We have to take slow steps. If we don't act now India will lose its natural resources at very fast pace and living conditions will become worst. I hope you got my point. We need economic growth but in a sustainable way.
Pl. concentrate on Environmental Regulations and Policies courses. By studying such courses, young people like you can devise policies to make sure industries have environmental sustainability plans to save the environment that they are destroying. We can bring new industries to make our economy improve, but we need proper regulations and policies in place for that and take care of our great environment.
In this case we not only saved environment, but also indigenous people (who lived there for centuries).
I have traveled to many countries and see the differences (how they protect their environment and how proud they are about it).
If you carefully account for the environmental cost of the environmental deterioration over the years, the development benefits by mining will be negligibly small. (That is what big companies do - give hard blue collar jobs to our people in the name of economy, destroy our resources and leave the mess for us to clean ).
His answer back:
Dr.Makesh,that was such an interesting mail! I have so much to learn from you. I had to read the mail thrice just to comprehend the depth of certain things. You are so very true about so many things,for example, the companies exploiting us and leaving up a mess for us to clean.
I'l surely take up Regulations and Policies seriously.
Hopefully I made a person to take this Environmental Regulations and Policies seriously and help saving our land and environment. These industries who advertise that they are going GREEN, should actually take steps to GO GREEN (even if it is a growing nation where they create their branch).
In an earlier post I had said about eco Vs ECO (eco represented environment and ECO represented ECONOMICS) and always the later won. Also was hoping that one day that tables would turn. I did not think it would turn that way this soon. Earlier Post on 07/2010
Now it ECO vs eco - here ECO is environment and eco - is economic. This time Environment is saved:
Environment authorities of India rejected proposals to mine the mountain (Billions of $s), which would have affected the tribes.
The government has also stopped a $12-billion steel plant proposed by South Korea's POSCO in Orissa.
Sustainable Land Development Project: eco vs ECO - Title implies that lower case eco is for environmental and
UPPER CASE ECO for ECONOMICS. May be one day we can change that.
As our aim is to use natural resources, we tried to bring in the solar and wind power to EA Farms. However initial queries for these ended up with huge cost estimates.
We contacted a company that produces water from wind.
Their technology is good, but the quote for the system was above our limits.
Then we contacted another company for solar and wind energy Combo unit. This cost was also high.
Our power requirement will be minimum and hence we are planning to go
with regular power resources (which we have several issues also :-)) rather than SOLAR & WIND Energy for time being.
As always Economics take over precendence over Environment.
But we will not give up. EA Farms will conform with minimal usage of power and try use renewable resource as we move forward.
Water for the farm.
As water is one of the key elements of farming, and our land has no water resource we were all praying for the help and guidance from heaven. The prayers were always there in the back of my mind even though I was involved in other activities. 14-06-2010 Finding water points at the land.
I spoke to Ravi aka captain on finding the water points at the land. This is an amazing exercise. Few humans are blessed with this power of locating the water points. Their body reacts to the ground water. Different people have different techniques, some use wooden sticks, some use metal rods, while some use water in a plastic pot. The water pot jumps around when they carry it around at the location where there is water beneath. Though Ravi himself has this capability he did not want to try for a huge land, as he has done only for building plots, which is much smaller in size. But he recommended one Mr. Ramasamy, an aged man; I guess he should be in his late 50s or early 60s who was experienced in finding for farms as well.
So, Mahesh, our driver, drove us (Ravi, Ramasamy and me) to the land after lunch.
Ramasamy started immediately as soon as we reached the land. He strode the land with his equipment, an iron rod stitched in a cloth at one end. The cloth is really long which he held on both hands and let the end with the iron piece to hang by almost a foot or slightly more, so it can swing freely. With the apparatus in his hand swinging he walked across the land moving perpendicularly in slow steps. Within 10 minutes he asked us to mark a location on the land, where he said we will get good water. Kathir and Ram, the existing farmhands started to mark the location with a stone, but Ramasamy asked them not to use stone, instead he asked them to mark with a wooden stick and cover it with coconut husks, which they did. I requested Ramasamy to locate few more water points on the land. Ramsamy performed the same act a few more times and pointed three more locations. Of which he said good water should be gotten from the spots he pointed first and third, though he said the other two also has water. Once this was done, we dropped him back at his home and paid him his fees, 1000 rupees only.
I asked him like if he would be able to advise me on the depth at which we will see water and he told me I should get it between 500 – 550 feet.
To be honest, as a man living in this technological world, I found it very hard to convince myself that a man swinging a piece of orange cloth walking around and suddenly pointing a spot and telling me, there is water source beneath the solid earth at around 500 - 550 feet below. But surprisingly I believed and my prayers grew stronger.
19-06-2010
Now, that the points were ready, the next step was to arrange for digging bore well. I went to find an auspicious time to dig the bore from our family astrologer, Mr. Dhandapani. After checking our horoscopes told me to dig the well on Monday morning before the sunrise. Hindu Almanac contains days that are good for activities like digging well according to celestial stars for each day. Now the date and time, 21-06-2010 before sunrise and latest by 7AM was fixed.
Ravi spoke to the local Agent for the bore well diggers. Later I met him and arranged for the diggers to be ready at 4.30 am on 21-06-2010. He said they will be ready even the night before. But since nobody will be at the farm, it was decided that they will wait at Vadakipalayam pirivu, on the way to the land and I will meet them at 4.00 am and we will proceed to the farm. But while they were waiting, a gas carrier overturned on the road at Vadakipalayam pirivu and the roads were blocked and all the vehicles were evacuated from the surrounding places by Police in fear of the truck catching fire. Luckily nothing of that sort happened. So, the bore well trucks moved some more interior and waited at Vadakipalayam. So, I asked Mahesh to be ready at 4.00 am on 21-06-2010. I also asked Mahesh to buy the pooja items required to offer prayers before starting to dig. 21-06-2010
I woke up at 3.30 am and got ready. Then we left home at 4.00 am. We were stopped by police at Vadakipalayam pirivu as they haven't yet cleared the gas truck. So we had to detour back to Pollachi and took another route via Vadugapalyam, Ponnavaram to reach Vadakipalayam. Then we woke the diggers and they trailed our car. Once they reached they (there were some 15 workers in the team) sprung to action immediately. I showed the point (the one Mr. Ramasamy spotted first). They positioned the truck carrying the driller such a way that the spot was in the exact center of the drilling bit. After they setup, I prayed sincerely to all Gods and ancestors requesting for water. The drilling started around 6 am.
The team of diggers was working so efficiently. I felt sorry for them as they did not have protective gear to protect them from dust that was being sucked out of the earth through the drilled hole. They also had a cook travelling with them, who setup makeshift kitchen and prepared some tea and breakfast for them. They also took bath using water from the next farm. Mahesh gathered from them that they only bathed once in a month.
I was so exited with the whole process I didn't feel hungry. Then I realized suddenly the time was 9.00 am and so I asked Mahesh to go back to Pollachi to have his breakfast and buy something for me to eat as well. I also asked the person who currently takes care of the land to eat with me. We decided to have him continue his work at the farm. Talking to him I realized that he has a passion for the farm activities and we need people with such passion and commitment.
At this time, the bore was like 190 feet deep. We were seeing different colors of fine powdery earth being sucked out. It must be that as the bore goes deeper it should be going through a different type of rocks beneath the earth. By around 11.30 there was some thick water mixed with the powdered earth came out. But the driller continued to drill. According to them, it was already 480 feet deep. The Manager asked me if we can continue to drill until 800 feet. I was wondering how will I decide, because nobody can predict the depth were we can get water. Later I found that even those water points identified using the satellite imaging techniques have failed. So now I was left with no other options except seek the guidance of the Almighty and the ancestors. I told him that the diviner has told that we would get water around 500 - 550 feet. so I told him to continue digging and we will decide when we cross the 550 feet mark. I was contemplating 700 feet in my mind. The manager left as he received another call from the agent that there was another bore to be dug the same day later.
So at around noon suddenly there was water spurting out when the drill rod was pushed down by the compressor.
I knew the prayers have been answered (Video above). What a feeling, cannot be explained but only experienced. I thanked all Gods.
So we requested the driller to continue to dig as far as possible. But once the water pressure was high, the drill bit moved very slowly and it was finding very difficult to continue to penetrate the rocks below. So he said that it will be the last rod that he can dig. We agreed and totally the bore well had consumed 30 drill rods, which was 560 feet deep. Also on top they inserted a 47 feet PVC pipe so that there will not be any slippage of loose soil on top. The diggers said our water outcome was very good and said it was like 3-4 inches of water. All those gathered were very happy. Now we will be able to save the rare coconut trees (nattu maram) that are currently present and needs water as quickly as possible. Also we used the first water (Kudam) to do the abhisekam to the Amman in the temple near the farm.
Now that the key element, Water, is ready I foresee a lot of activities lined up for the next few weeks, which I feel I will be able to achieve with the guidance from Above.
KC
