Dhaka Tannery Industrial Estate Wastage Treatment Plant Company Ltd has sent a rejoinder to a report run by The Daily Star on January 12 under the headline "Buriganga suffering, Dhaleshwari worse off".
The rejoinder sent on March 20 claimed that the report contained many incorrect and misleading information which tarnished the company's image at home and abroad. It said the information of releasing 15,000 m3 effluent into the Dhaleshwari was misleading and it harmed the leather sector and the country's dignity.
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"After completing some pre-treatment inside the tannery, effluents are sent directly to the CETP through conveyance pipelines for treatment. There is no way to discharge untreated effluents into the river. Overflow of incoming effluent occurred to some extent last year. But it is now under control due to the improvement in the overall condition of the pre-treatment inside the tannery estate and also because of regular cleaning of the conveyance system."
Claiming that the CETP (central effluent treatment plant) at the tannery estate is fully functional, the rejoinder said the inlet effluent is being treated to decontaminate the effluent by more than 90 percent and the company is making its maximum efforts to achieve Environment Conservation Rules-1997 standards.
The rejoinder attached a test report done on November 11 last year by "Bureau Veritas" in which nine parameters out of ten were found to be within the permissible limit. It argued that the outrageous picture of a river pollution as a result of discharge of untreated effluents into the river is not true. The river appears to be being polluted by discharge of untreated liquid from many industrial units set up on the two banks outside the Tannery Industrial Estate, the rejoinder added.
OUR REPLY
The report was prepared based on a study jointly carried out by the geography and environment department of Jahangirnagar University, environmental science department of Stamford University and Waterkeepers, Bangladesh.
The study team took samples from four points of the rivers during pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon period and analysed the data based on six indicators -- biological oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solid (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia, oil and grease, pH level and phenol.
It followed the Canadian Council of Ministries of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME), a method widely followed in North America.
The CCME model assesses water quality by assigning scores out of 100. A score of 0-40 is categorised as poor quality, 45-64 is marginal, 65-79 fair and 80-100 is excellent.
In the six indicators, the Dhaleshwari scored 27.06 and the Buriganga 39.39.
In another study, done last year by the Department of Geography and Environment of Jahangirnagar University, water samples were collected from spots adjacent to the industrial estate in Hemayetpur found the tannery waste to be the key source of pollution in the Dhaleshwari.
The study concluded that the tannery estate singlehandedly played a role in polluting the river.
In the meantime, the parliamentary body on the environment, forest and climate change ministry on August 24 and November 29 last year suggested the CETP in Hemayetpur be shut for its failure to contain the pollution.
"The Tannery Industrial Estate has the capacity to treat around 25,000 cubic metres of liquid waste every day, but the tanners generate around 40,000 cubic metres of liquid waste per day. That means 15,000 cubic metres are dumped into the [Dhaleshwari] river without any treatment, causing severe pollution," Saber Hossain Chowdhury, chief of the parliamentary watchdog, said on August 24 last year.
The report's information on dumping 15,000 cubic metres of liquid waste was collected from his statement which clearly captured the authority's failure in containing the pollution.