Lunawa… being resurrected!

Once upon a time it was a paradise for birds. But the people around it made it a virtual cesspit. The factories located around the lagoon directed their toxic flow into it, without wasting their profits to properly depose of them.

The authorities too failed in their duty to keep its mouth clear and to properly maintain its circulation system, nearly 7 km long canals system. All made a hell out of it.

It is the in-famous Lunawa lagoon, a major lagoon located close to Colombo in Moratuwa; to residents nearby it is a living hell, an eyesore to train commuters and just a shower would be suffice to cause floods in the are affecting some 18,000 families!

Sewerage

For decades, people living around the lagoon and its canals washed their sewerage down there. Thus sewerage and polluted industrial waste, heavy metals and noxious chemicals seeped into the lagoon freely, without restriction or anyone being concerned.

Gradually, water hyacinth, thriving on the polluted water conquered the lagoon along with stuff of urban pollutants such as shopping bags, polythene and plastics.

As a result of decades of industrial and domestic dumping of waste, sewerage had made such a rich soup of disease, multiplied the effects of flash floods, for the poor who lived in shanties closer to the lagoon. The fish died, so did the lagoon; the birds bade adieu, and flew away for good.

The Lunawa lagoon thus became biologically dead!

“We used to live in a hell. A drizzle was enough to cause a flood. Roads were under black, stinky water. Mosquitoes were in their millions. Our children were always not well. Even to

consult a doctor we had to tread a long way for hours...” Priyanthi Irangani 30, cuddling her one year old little daughter was relating the agonies of her life around the lagoon.

Now, she owns a house in Riverside housing scheme, one of four schemes characterised as Hike Terrace, Lake View Garden, River Side and Green View Garden that were constructed to house the families who were displaced due to the Lunawa Lagoon rehabilitation project under the Colombo Flood Control Programme 5, funded by the Japanese Bank for the International Co-operation.

This project was implemented by the Urban and Sacred Areas Development Ministry together with the Dehiwala - Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council. According to the Ministry official 83 families out of 855 families displaced due to the project are living in these schemes.

Relief

“It is a relief to see the lagoon and waterways cleared of such debris and stink. No more floods and muddy pools will there be; we have new roads, pipe borne water and electricity, toilets and a children’s park for our children to play...” Priyanthi is now happy with the change for the better.

Around 567 families chose to live where they lived before but in new houses built by themselves with the funds granted under the project.

“Lunawa had changed a great deal. I see the change when I travel by train to and fro my office in Colombo. Earlier, I never watched the lagoon, since what was offered to its viewers was only foul water clogged with all sorts of eyesores. So I looked the opposite direction instead,” Dayasena Abeylath, a senior Journalist said.

Abeylath who is now 68 had enjoyed the beauty of the lagoon three or four decades ago. “The area was teeming with birds. People used to fish in the lagoon, there were not so many houses then.”

Although the lagoon could not possibly retain its pristine glory, he believes that the lagoon has regained much of its charm that it used to have several decades before.

The residents are now aware of the bitter cost of the pollution. They are now more cautious, not to pollute the lagoon again; they do not dump garbage into the lagoon.

Instead they make compost out of garbage. Some are organised even to buy off the refuse. The birds too are gradually rediscovering their once lost paradise just as did the people.

Wasantha