Our patient - Valankulam tank

So on Tuesday, Mr. Ilangovan (civil engineer with the Public Works Department) took us for our last field visit so far: a tour around Valankulam tank. We could see the various contributors to the pollution in the tank. Through an open drainage more than 1 million liters of sewage water reach the tank each day, a large portion of that stems from the General Hospital. Moreover, a bus depot cleaning 150 buses each day directs 15.000l of wastewater into the tank. Also, the encroachments/ slums at the north side of the tank have no sanitation at all, so that all of their sewage flows directly into the tank. Next to these fluid streams of pollution, lots solid waste that is dumped at the side of the tank, household waste, building debris and market waste. We got lots of valuable information on Tuesday, but at the same time we were sad to see the bad condition that the tank is in. Lots of work remains to be done. Here are some pictures of what we saw: