Save the rivers

By neglecting the river resources of the country, the relevant authorities are committing a cardinal environmental sin. The most rivers of the country, big or small, are in a condition that gives us an impression that there is none to look after their protection and preservation from not only the environmental point of view but also from the economic point of view as well. This is despite the fact the government is spending huge money every year for protection and preservation of rivers. The money is going down the drain.
A report of a national daily yesterday depicts what a dismal scenario Bangladesh’s rivers, irreplaceable assets of this deltaic region, present before our eyes. River pollution, a phenomenon once only confined to Dhaka and Chattogram, now has spread all across the country. It has been revealed in a fresh study that at least 56 rivers flowing through different parts of the country are suffering from extreme pollution during the lean period when natural flows of rivers are at their lowest.
This sorry state of the rivers was found through testing waters of rivers in Dhaka, Khulna, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Barishal and Chattogram in a study conducted by the Rivers and Delta Research Centre (RDRC), a non-government organisation working for rivers in Bangladesh. The RDRC survey tested the levels pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD) of each river water sample at a Gazipur laboratory. Contrary to what we generally tend to believe that waters of the Buriganga were the most polluted, it has been revealed in the study that the reality is Dhaka’s other rivers surpass the Burigana in terms of pollution. Of the 56 rivers, 19 are located in Dhaka division, and all of them are severely polluted. Besides these, plastic and polythene pollution was prevalent in all 56 rivers that were surveyed, which is alarming to say the least.
The study has found that some rivers outside Dhaka, where there are no effluent generating factories, the DO levels are within the standard (4.5-8mg per litre) but these rivers contain high levels of the pH, COD or BOD. It was also found that, of the 56 rivers, 25 rivers contain the dissolved oxygen level below 5mg per litre during the dry season making the water unlivable for fish or other aquatic lives.
While the rivers are left to pollute, many rivers of the country have also dried up or in the throes of death. If this twin of problems of pollution and extinction of rivers continues unabated, it will be not long when the nation will tragically realise that neglecting the rivers was not only an environmental suicide, but it destroyed the country’s economic potentials as well.