Drains And Canals
The Dehiwela canal, by day.
Colombo has open drains, which many canals have turned into. Run off (but not raw sewage) flows into open channels along the streets and between neighborhoods. These liquid alleys end up full of plastic, garbage, whatnot. The canals do sometimes get raw sewage from the wattes (slums or illegal settlements if you will) along their sides. Both drains and canals can be noxious to nose and eye.
On a sorta plus point, I did see the biggest kabaragoya ever (water monitor, I think) in a drain. Like, the size of me from tip to tail, with a formidable body. To me this was awesome and people stopped to look, but the thing could really eat a child. I guess it’s hanging around Mount Lavinia somewhere.
Drain alley
On a daily basis, however, these drains are not amusing. They’re just nasty. The drains on the side of the road are either open and nasty, or covered with dubious, wobbly Prince Of Persia tiles. These end up in wider rivers of muck that pass between houses. I’m not sure where these rivers end up, in canals or the sea.
Dead bird near drain alley
Something obviously isn’t right here. I think Colombo has a colonial era underground sewer (?) but Dehiwela and Mount seem to, not. It’s all out there in the open. That might vaguely work, but people treat the drains and canals as garbage dumps, and they inevitably get clogged. I have seen someone cleaning the drains once, which was kinda horrifying. The canals get dredged by floating cranes, but as long as people keep dumping, the problem persists.
In the Netherlands, living near a canal is desirable, but here it’s not. The people that do often treat it as a sorta back toilet or flowing garbage dump. I was walking along one today, however, and it could be quite beautiful. Today it didn’t even smell so bad.
Generally, however, it ain’t pretty. Drains are full of garbage and muck, not to mention plastic bags, rats and giant prehistoric lizards. The canals are also not so pretty, and they empty into the sea. The whole thing empties into the streets when it rains. Not to mention the eye-watering smell that sometimes comes offa the standing water, and the mosquitos. Stankonia.
Posted on Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 in Colombo, Photography.
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I have a lot of connections to Dehiwala from the days of my grand mother and I used to live there and have a lot of relatives there. It disgusts me to see how people are treating this canal and the waterways. The two-storied, three-storied houses near these canal (mostly muslim households) throw their garbage to the canal from their upstairs! I just wonder how they continue to live in the very same house.
And have you seen the guy who collects worms in this canal? He just gets in their in the morning and just keeps collecting worms until noon like nobody’s business! What I heard is that he sells these to the aquariams as fish food!
Blame the Muslims. Original.
Silva – 60%-75% of the people, living in Dehiwala are muslims. Therfore the muslim community, as a whole, has a responsibility to take care of the environment they are living in. It’s not a blame but rather a fact.This is not to say the other communities don’t have a responsibility. They do have an equal responsibility. I was just pointing out a fact. It’s not a racially directed comment. Just clarifying.
There is a blog post on the extended problem of this issue, here
srilankanewsonline.com/save-dehiwela-beach-from-polution-and-health-hazards/
same like india. many simply don’t care. instead they just whine and blame the government for the mess.
even if its too late for adults, school children should make aware of the these things…
and they should be given first hand experience about pollution. and about the difficulty of cleaning up.
This environment issue is widespread, not limited to Dehiwala. Even big reputed factories pollute the environment. Trying to blame a particular community is narrow thinking. Even drains in wattala where Christians are majority, have this issue.
You c ant blame a community in this respect . these type of people belong to every sect. As regards to wattala it is no more a majority christian area .Both the chairman and the vice chairman of the U/ council are muslims.but canal problem hab deen there for ages.