FROTHS, FIRES AND FIGHTS OVER SUSTAINABILITY OF BELLANDUR LAKE - A CASE FOR INTENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL DETECTIVISM

DAS, RESHMI and RAO, LN and HOYSALL, CHANAKYA (2019) FROTHS, FIRES AND FIGHTS OVER SUSTAINABILITY OF BELLANDUR LAKE - A CASE FOR INTENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL DETECTIVISM. In: The 17th International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium, September 30th to October 4th, 2019, Forte Village Resort, Santa Margherita di Pula (Cagliari) Italy.

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Abstract

Bellandur Lake, a 800acre, 1000year man-made waterbody in Bangalore suffers sewage ingress, globally infamous for burning four times recently and foaming to envelope passing vehicles to make bridge crossing hazardous. A reincarnated Alessandro Volta seeing it now would rechristen this “Ignis Astutus (not Fatuus)” after some insightful ‘Environmental Detectivism’. Various stakeholders have used ‘lake-centric environmental activism’ with ‘doomsday predictions deploying meagre data and questionable analysis to play on peoples’ fears while reducing the lake to a real-estate ‘El-Dorado’ worth €10Billion. Creating sufficient nuisance level could convince the administration to convert it to real-estate while the environmentalists helplessly cry foul. Further, not knowing where the next scandal will emerge, administration and environment regulatory bodies were on the defensive, while all available data strongly supports its continued existence. Strong public opinion and judicial activism forced the administration to close all commercial and ‘industrial’ activities in the catchment for over 3 months. Yet, foam did not stop - negating the phosphatic detergent, rogue industry, ‘underground laundry’ theories put out as cause of foam. The ‘Ghost’ of heavy metals then surfaced when the scare from phosphatic detergent or toxic foam, etc. failed to impact citizens, environmentalists, judiciary, etc. Our analysis indicated need for a balanced, neutral decision-making system that supersedes environmental trade-offs, developmental advantages, short-long term commercial gains, individuals Vs Commons, market viability Vs long-term sustainability conflicts. This paper recounts the ‘Environmental Opportunism” Vs academic and administrative reality conflicts and emerging issues for over 3 decades and portraying it as exemplar for emergent socio-political and environmental conflicts.

Item Type:	Conference Proceedings
Publisher:	CISA Publisher
Additional Information:	(ISSN: 2282-0027 - ISBN: 9788862650144)
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Sustainable Technologies (formerly ASTRA)
Date Deposited:	16 Mar 2022 06:13
Last Modified:	30 Aug 2022 09:34
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/71559

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