Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

WASTE WATER POLLUTION IN COASTAL CITY: A STUDY IN THE CITY OF VISAKHAPATNAM, INDIA

G. Dileep and M. Prameela

Abstract

Rapid urbanization in India in recent decades has given rise to a number of environmental problems such as water supply, wastewater generation and its collection, treatment, and disposal. Water is a major environmental issue in India. Nearly 80% of the water supplied for domestic use passes out as wastewater. In most cases, this wastewater is let out untreated and causes large scale pollution of the surface water. India is blessed with long coastline of about 7500 kilometres with over 1200 islands in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of India, endowed with a number of estuaries, mangroves, coral lagoons and mudflats. However, increasing levels of organic and inorganic pollution in the coastal water over the years is posing a grave danger to the Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and microbial concentrations levels which are the two most important indicators of the health of coastal waters. The Visakhapatnam is a coastal city with beautiful beaches in the state of Andhra Pradesh is facing a coastal pollution as the total sewage generation is 225 MLD, the capacity of sewage treatment plants is only 86 MLD, therefore there is huge gap of 139 MLD sewage water untreated waste water being discharged into the sea. As this is the case, an attempt has been made to study and understand the waste water quality that is being discharged into the sea in the city and found that all the parameters in the waste water with respective to pH, D.O, B.O.D, C.O.D, TSS, Oil & Grease, Ammonical Nitrogen, Organic Nitrogen and Sulphide are not under permissible limits as per EPA and CPCB standards for discharge of waste water into waterbodies / sea.