by Mostafa Kamal Majumder
Dhaka – The deaths of fishes that breed and grow, and water birds that feed and roost in the haors (depressions) of greater Sylhet region on the northeastern part of Bangladesh, following a flash flood just in a week’s time have surprised everybody not only in the affected areas but concerned people all over Bangladesh and the rest of the world.
More than the shock wreaked by the sudden disaster coming down the haors of Sunamganj, are the hasty remarks and apparent conclusions that have started to be made quoting agriculture as well as fisheries experts. These can only be called most shameful at the least.
First the experts said, as per reports published in the Bangladesh press and media, the paddy plants submerged in the flash flood rot and created ammonia gas that mixed with the water making it toxic for the fishes and the birds. On Saturday the ‘experts’ have been quoted as saying ‘no uranium’ has been found in the haor water.
The people of the Sylhet region are used facing the natural calamity like flash flood from time immemorial and know the floods actually keep the haors alive and rich in nutrients for crops, fishes as well as water fowls. Disastrous floods like the one experienced in Sunamganj has proved very devastating to farmers as it came too early before they could harvest their paddy crops that had become half ripe.
Farmers, aided by water experts, make use of submersible embankments to protect their crop fields from minor flash floods. These embankments go under water during the wet season and cause no adverse environmental impacts on the haor ecosystem. Farmers lose crops when flash floods overtop the submersible embankments and inundate crop plants in fields.
After such submersion of crops farmers try as best as possible to harvest paddy from under water if the depth is not too much. Sumberged paddy plants rot and turn into fish feed and manure, the fishes and insects are the feed of the watrer fowls.
An important aspect of the haor ecosystem is that these depressions go down through the natural process of subsidence by several inches every year. The silt and sediment carried by floods fill the gap and maintain natural balance. There has never been toxicity either from the bottom of these depressions or from floods that overflow those every year.
The Agriculture and fisheries experts definitely are more worried than average people who eagerly await their opinions to know about the reasons leading to the unprecedented environmental disaster. But their expert opinions should not look like ready made answers.
Why should submerged paddy plants decompose or rot just in a couple of days? Even if they rot can they release toxic substances like ammonia? Even if one takes this hypothesis that has been aired through the press and the media as true, how the experts have ascertained this. Without proper sampling of the water and their proper tests in well-equipped laboratories under the supervision of qualified experts, it is never possible to determine whether the water was toxic or not, and if so what agents have caused the toxicity. Most important of all water in haors after floods are not stagnant, but flows continuously.
It’s close to an impossibility for agricultural or fisheries experts from far-flung sunamganj to say if the contamination was caused by uranium or not. Only nuclerar experts have the equipment, technology and the expertise plus sophisticated automicspectrophotometer to determine and tell = after lab tests – of the presence or notherwise of uranium or its like substances in the water that has killed the fishes and the water fowls. Even that takes time. One has to bring the samples of both water and the dead fishes and birds to competent experts to test those at labs in Dhaka.
Till that has been done, would our ‘expert’ friends refrain themselves from making hasty remarks, suggestions or conclusions. Experts do not make remarks without becoming sure about the things they talk about. The topic of death of fishes and birds after a normal flash flood – early though – and the reported speculative narratives of experts give little scope to rely upon.
What has happened is an extremely serious environmental disaster. Without becoming sure about its cause and effect relationships, please make no more speculations. Because the affected people have to overcome the disaster and such disaster should not recurr. So the best option for them is to shut up, before the necessary investigations have been completed.
On Sunday UNB reported a three-member expert team of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, in its primary test, has detected no traces of uranium in the water of different haors in the district.
“In the initial test, we found no existence of uranium toxins in the water. However, the confirmed result can be known after getting the laboratory test result,” said Dilip Kumar Shah, chief of the expert team.
The expert team reached the district on Saturday to collect the water sample to ascertain whether there are any radioactive materials in the water.
The move was taken following suspicion that uranium-mixed water is coming down to the haors from Khasi Hills, causing the deaths of different aquatic species like fish and frogs.
According to fisheries department, over 50 metric tonnes of fish have died after hilly water and excessive rains submerged a vast tract of the back swamp in Sunamganj and a few other northeastern haor zones.
Several teams of Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute, Mymensingh, Bangladesh Fisheries and River Research Institute, Chandpur have been working to determine the reason behind the deaths of the aquatic resources.
(Editor of GreenWatch Dhaka and a researcher, the writer is co-author and editor of ‘Rivers of Life’, co-author of ‘Disputes over the Ganga’, ‘In search of a golden dream’)
