It is no wonder that the local WHO representative, Dr Khadim Lakhiar, finds the water and the fish in Manchhar “absolutely unfit” for human consumption. The irony is that this fish-catch is dried and packed at Manchhar for onward movement to Hyderabad and Karachi where it is used as part of poultry feed, taking the poisonous cycle from water and fish to chicken and eggs.

Ghulam Mustafa Mirani, vice-president of the Pakistan Fishermen Forum, echoed the feelings of many when he said that the Nai Gaaj Dam may well leave Manchhar a thing of the past. Maula Bux Mallah, a local fisherman, nodded vigorously, insisting that a poisonous Manchhar was “still better than a dead Manchhar”.

The plaque at the dam site describes the activity as the “inauguration of the feasibility report”, which appears to be a comfortable way out for the authorities to calm down the locals. Rafiq Jamali, the MNA from the Dadu-Juhi constituency, used the ploy when Dawn contacted him over the phone in Islamabad. “It is just a feasibility report. I don’t know why people should feel so strongly about it,” he said. It may be beyond him, but with two feasibility reports already in hand and a third one under process, the mood of the authorities is not beyond the locals, and they are concerned; very concerned.

Getting back to the water flow, though, the story doesn’t end at Manchhar. Through the Aral Wah, the liquefied poison flows into the Indus where it is joined by the chemical waste thrown out by the Lakhra and Jamshoro power stations and a multinational firm in the vicinity. While there is intense effort on the part of all government functionaries to absolve the two power stations of any wrongdoing, no one is able to explain why there was such a huge difference last year between the havoc that gripped the Hyderabad, Latifabad and Kotri areas, and the relative calm elsewhere along the Manchhar route till it reached Jamshoro.

After all, it was the same Manchhar water flowing all the way through, but the number of casualties post-Jamshoro were dramatically different. Apparently, there has to be something seriously wrong with the Jamshoro effluent, but instead of trying to locate the problem, the authorities — of all shades and hues — are trying to cover up. DCO Jamshoro Qabool Shaikh blurted out the obvious dilemma of the authorities. “If we close the two power plants, you people will start shouting about power failures. We don’t have a choice, you see.”

Faced with a Hobson’s choice, the DCO has allowed the power stations to continue adding their waste to the Indus. This he has done on the basis of a certificate issued by Abu Adil, the chief engineer of the plants concerned. That the DCO found no reason to have an independent opinion tells its own tale, especially when the chief engineer concerned was one of the officials charge-sheeted last year after the Hyderabad tragedy, and had to secure protective bail from the Sindh High Court.

When contacted, Mr Adil waved a bunch of papers as a proof that the plants were not guilty, but refused to share that ‘proof’ with Dawn. “I can’t do that, of course,” he said with an evasive smile, asking his subordinates why tea had still not been served.

The most disturbing thing is that the whole route is official, and every single drop of poisonous waste that mixes with drinking water along the route is officially supposed to fall right there. Nobody is flouting any rules. This is what the government plan has been, and continues to be.

The tragedy last year has meant media focus on the release of water from Manchhar, and everyone in the irrigation department wastes little time in taking pride in the fact that nothing of the sort has happened this year. The fact of the matter is that what is happening this year is no different from what took place the last year. The MNV brought the same toxic waste, water from Manchhar had to be released beyond a certain level, and nothing changed at Jamshoro either. The only difference is that there is enough water in the Indus flowing downstream to dilute the toxins. This is what has saved the skin of all concerned. But it is simply a matter of converting poison into slow-poison. It will kill, but it will kill slowly. This is the net worth of the irrigation department’s pride.

The authorities are hoping for much improved water supply this year in the wake of heavy snowfall in the north and the expected more-than-modest monsoons in the months ahead. In fact, they are preparing for a low-to-medium-level flood. All this means there may be no water deaths this year. What may happen in subsequent years when the dry cycle will inevitably return is anybody’s guess.

The authorities appear to have no plans to handle that situation, as was duly confirmed by Manzoor Shaikh, the Kotri Barrage chief engineer. The water can’t be allowed to rise at Manchhar beyond a certain level and toxic water has to be released into the Indus, and if there is not enough fresh water in the river, as happened last year, what would the government do, he was asked. “We will look up to God,” he said.

A few more minutes into the discussion, he stressed that there was “nothing to worry about” because of the wet cycle that is expected this year and may last for a while. In practical terms, he is expecting the wet cycle to last till at least five years when the Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) is expected to get functional. Wasn’t this his hope? “You can say that,” he said, with a laugh that exposed a helpless official of a clueless government department.

Describing the plan, Dr Ahsan Siddiqui, a trained chemical analyst, told Dawn that it was possible to treat 90 per cent of the effluents in the MNV Drain through the electro-static process, which involves putting up electrodes every eight kilometres along the MNV route. With each electrode costing around Rs3.5 million, the whole scheme involves nothing more than Rs30-35 million.

While the Environment Protection Agency had initially shown much interest after finding the proposal technically and financially feasible, a change in the EPA hierarchy resulted in loss of interest on the part of the agency, says Dr Siddiqui.

Another mechanism, developed by Professor Ashfaq Pirzada, a post-graduate chemical engineer by training, and part of the faculty at the Mehran University, Jamshoro, seems to be a practical solution to the problem posed by the Kotri industrial waste. Prof Pirzada has devised an extremely low-cost mechanism to not just treat effluents, but also to get byproducts out of them.

Electrodes along the MNV Drain and low-cost treatment plants at Jamshoro and Kotri may go a long way towards ensuring the supply of potable water to the majority of the population in Sindh, but apparently there is little hope in this regard because Irrigation Secretary Ashfaq Memon, when contacted, said he had no idea what it was all about. — HI