Chennai: Puzhuthivakkam Lake, once an expanse of blue water so clean that one could drink handfuls of cool water straight from its banks, is today a highly polluted 16-acre body with as much effluent as water, near its eponymous neighbourhood west of Velachery.
The authorities use it as a dumpyard and many households in Baliah Garden, Sadasiva Nagar, Ramalinga Nagar, Sheela Nagar and Ramanan Nagar along the fringes of the lake let sewage directly into its water, causing severe contamination.
But the biggest culprit is a motorcycle service centre on Raja Street in Balaiah Garden that discharges effluents like waste soap oil (a cleaning agent), grease, used engine oil and petrol in the lake.
Not all residents of these localities lack civic sense or have utter disregard for a lake they want to protect.
Some like K Lakshmipathy, of Baliah Garden, said he and others had repeatedly asked the owner of the service station not to discharge effluents into the lake. The lake still has some fish and also attracts ducks is something of a miracle. But the fish are dying rapidly, residents said.
Sheela Nagar resident P Arumugam said he's been fishing in the lake for more than a decade.
"I can see the change," he said. "There are fewer fish now." He said the fish were probably dangerous to eat now with all the toxic effluents in the lake.
Social activist V Rama Rao, who earlier helped clean the lake, said encroachment was another problem.
"Overgrown bushes and encroachments have reduced the size of the lake considerably," he said. Not only have land sharks taken over land, they've also constructed large buildings and dumped debris from the work in the lake."
P Ramu, of Madipakkam, said residents asked officials of various departments for help to rejuvenate the water body.
"Pollution control board officials should come and visit the place and take measurements to calculate just how polluted the lake has become," he said. "I'm sure they will be alarmed."
