Financial Times

What happens when objects hit the blades of a fan rotating at high speed? If the items directed at the fan blades are dirt, sewerage or even faeces, what will the resultant environment be! The people of the city of Colombo may not be far away from experiencing this unpleasant living environment predict experts and this too in the popular upmarket living areas of Colombo; not Wanathamulla or Kochchiyawatte.

The physics and mathematics class rooms of young owls studying volumes, pressure, friction, tension and motion explains the predicted environment. Young owls learn that a pipe through which liquids and solids pass, exerts pressure on the pipe surface and that the tension on the pipe increases proportionately to the increase in the pressure and volumes pushed through and where such pressure exceeds the maximum capacity there will be a breach in the pipe system.

The sewerage system of the city was once connected to a single set of households down a lane with a defined number of houses.

The pipe system has aged several decades since installation and now carries the sewerage of the multiple households due to apartment complexes and new multiple households within earlier single households.

The investment in upgrading and expanding the sewerage and water systems has not kept pace with neither the replacement needs of aging systems nor the expansion in buildings and population density. There have been several studies, plans and investment proposals including financing plans that have been prepared over the last two decades but these have not been effectively implemented.

This is a costly error as the current investment in expansion and upgrading may be 40 to 50 times the originally proposed investment.

The water supply situation is similar with the draw down requirements being forty to fifty times the original draw down, with water shortages experienced even in the popular living areas of the City.

Burst and leaking water pipes provide opportunities for the leaking sewerage to pollute the pipe borne water with high risks of water borne diseases, diarrhoeal diseases and high spends on health care and sick society in the city.

The next scary and high-risk exposure of city dwellers is the impunity with which builders, businesses and householders, under the very eyes of the Regulatory Authorities, connect household and business waste water, and even at times washroom/bathroom and industrial waste water, as well as sewage, to rain water drains pipes leading this waste to streams and lakes around the city.

Many without pipe supplies use this polluted water and streams and lakes are full of dirt causing stench and unsightly places around the city.

The hardships and health hazards are evident and experienced by many in the city including high society and big business.

We are yet to see civil society action groups becoming active in this critical area and those responsible for the original sin are let free.

This unplanned expansion and unsupported infrastructure will soon be evident and the "dance of the demons" will become common sights when pipe bursts become a regular occurrence and result in the release of raw sewerage in the open. This is when the dirt and faeces will hit the high speed fans.

May be then, the nation and city governors, civil society and business will awaken with dirt on their faces.

Civil society must invite leaders to a walk around the city after a heavy down pour, when rain water runs down the streets, with overflowing cess pits and flowing dirt and sewerage and associated stench and unsightly environment.

The high health risks, especially to children who play in the gardens, playgrounds and streets must be experienced rather than imagined.

The World Bank Environmental Economists has in many presentations clearly shown the current situation, the national economic and societal costs of the neglect in upgrading, expansion and regulation, the risks associated and the recommended strategy of acion.

The citizens of Colombo must demand that proper regulatory and control regime be in place with heavy penalties to ensure that no household or business pollute the city dwellers interests.

They must demand that a high one off tax or levy be imposed on all apartment and business complexes that use the city sewerage and water supply systems as well as an annual charge within a multiple rating system that imposes higher levies on large users are in place.

This levy must be placed in a fund and not appropriated to national or municipal budgets and used to recoup the investment costs arranged by the government facilitated by loans and aid packages available from multilateral and bilateral donors.

Otherwise be prepared to face the dirt deflected from the fan, the high risk living environment and above all a low grade classification of Colombo as a city.