VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

Powered by hydraulic pressure due to copious rains in a short period on 1st and 3rd May, massive quantities of plastics has come down from the geddas and landed at our beaches. Some 20% of it will have reached the sea waters by now and half of that may be pushed back ashore over a series of high tides. Certainly a large portion will remain in the sea destroying our marine life. Tactically now will be the best time to remove as much plastics as possibl e from the gedda-beach-sea ecosystem. We can turn this disaster into an opportunity by grabbing and removing as much of this rubbish as possible. The red mud that washed towards the beach can be handled later, it would be better to put all of GVMC's resources into capturing the plastics when we can and take them out of the system. WE MUST ACT URGENTLY.

Vizag’s dirty secret Nallah nostalgia Storm water drains form naturally over time when rain water runs-off the land towards slopes. We also call them “nallahs” or “geddas”. Vizag has hillocks on three sides and a sea on one side. It is natural that all the rain water to gush quite quickly down the slopes and into the sea. Along the way the storm water gathered in some of the low lying areas forming natural reservoirs before making its way to the sea. Vizag always had an excellent natural storm water drainage system. A survey of India map of Vizag in 1929 shows that we had 31 km of storm water drains within the smaller Vizag at that time and 300 acres of water bodies that these storm water drains drained into. Fascinating ecosystem This system of natural storm water drains was an ecological wonderland. Tall grass grew all along the nallahs and played host to myriad creatures. At the bottom of the food chain were the worms, grasshoppers, mantis, tadpoles, frogs, snai...