Posted on March 27, 2024
Goa’s third longest river covers 35km and in its heyday was a thriving waterway for foreign goods. A plan to clean the Sal, once Salcete’s lifeline, was devised in 2012 but to this day the river is gasping to stay alive as pollutants throttle it
“This is worse than the St Inez nullah, which is much cleaner,” was how Manohar Parrikar reacted on observing the condition of the Sal river during an inspection soon after he became the chief minister in March 2012.
“Sewerage water is discharged into the river, which stinks and its colour is something that you can’t even imagine,” he had said. “We need to start the Sal river clean-up mission. For that we will have to cut off the sources of of pollution.”
Parrikar kick-started the Sal Clean-up Project and though he managed to get central funds for dredging the river soon thereafter, the project was mired in delays. A year later, in July 2013, Parrikar promised to set up a river water treatment plant at Shirvodem, Navelim, to treat the Sal’s waters. The fate of the plan remains unknown.
Ancient, holy origin of river
The Sal, which runs from Verna to Betul,was once the lifeline of Salcete. It is the third longest river (35km) in Goa. The river originates as a small stream from the ancient site of the Mahalsa temple at Verna. Downhill, the river’s main channel is formed in the paddy fields between Arossim and Cansaulim.
The River Rejuvenation Committee was constituted by the order of the National Green Tribunal to monitor the action plan of state govt to revive the polluted river in 2019. But filth continues to flow through the Sal as the plan has so far failed to effectively address the sources of pollution.
The Sal River Action Plan Report, 2019, of state govt observes that the Khareband-Margao stretch is the most polluted strip of the river followed closely by the Assolna-Mobor-Betul belt.
Inimical inflows abound
A case study on the Sal by Samuel Afonso for his dissertation for the master’s degree in environment science and technology (2021-22) points to the major factors affecting the river’s water quality. They are hotel industry waste (21%), domestic waste (16%), STP waste (13%), and chemical effluents from prawn hatcheries (9%). The detrimental factors also include oil spills and food waste from motorboats (9%), industrial waste (7%), open defecation/toilet waste (6%), and an increase in fishing trawler traffic (4%). Other pollution sources are animal slaughter waste (4%), the concretisation and filling up of low-lying areas along the banks (3%), the introduction of exotic species like mudfish and tilapia (3%), dredging and sand mining (3%), and fishing using gelatine explosives (2%).
