Bengaluru: The earth on fire at Lakshmipura, where a stone quarry has been filled to the brim with garbage and soil, is not a recent phenomenon. Around 15-20 families of ragpickers, originally from Delhi and Assam, who have settled down at a corner of the quarry for the last four years, claim that they have seen methane gas bubbling up for the last 18 months.
“It is not new to us. Though we don’t cook in that gas as we know it comes from the garbage beneath, we heat and boil water sometimes,” said Jalaluddin and Seema, a rag-picker couple living at the quarry.
“We are poor people without an address, electricity or a gas connection,” they said. While the villagers close to the quarry said that the gas could continue to come out of the earth for the next five to six months, the BBMP engineers are hopeful of stopping it in about a week using strategic engineering methods.
The 90 feet deep quarry spreads over 7.26 acres on Survey No. 23 of a Gomala land. It was filled up with garbage and soil a couple of years ago. But as it was not done scientifically, methane gas is coming out of the earth, a villager said.
“District administration officials and a few local goons have misused a lot of money meant to set things right here. They should be blamed for putting the lives of villagers at risk,” he said.
The dumping of garbage stopped about six months ago after the quarry was filled to the brim and the locals blocked the BBMP garbage trucks from entering the area, said Ajith, a resident of Lakshmipura.
Action plan to restore garbage dumpyard
The government has released Rs 24 lakh of the allocated Rs 42 lakh to take up remedial measures at the dumpyard. Mr Muniraju told Deccan Chronicle, “We have laid ventilator pipes at four spots for the gas to escape and we have identified 12 other spots where such pipes with gauze will be driven into the soil. We have also dug 3-feet pits where the methane gas is bubbling out of the stagnant rainwater so that the gas can escape.”
BBMP engineers hope that the gas will stop coming out of the earth within a week after these measures. “Around 70 loads of red soil have been ordered for soil capping of plantations near the quarry. Soil capping will be done in all four directions and the plantations on the quarry area will take care of further gas absorption. To prevent leachate from seeping into nearby fields, the BBMP will build a 4-foot retaining wall separating the quarry from the nearby fields and the lake. Around 1,500 liters of Effective Microorganism (EM) solution have been poured on the quarry land so that it seeps into the garbage mound beneath and absorb the methane gas,” Mr Muniraju said.
Fields and lake polluted
Large amounts of garbage mixed with soil has not only turned the area into a methane field, but has also destroyed rose gardens, ginger and turmeric fields, wells and lakes nearby. The leachate has seeped deep into the ground, contaminating the groundwater and rendering soil around infertile.
A large number of trees, including coconut trees, near the quarry are either dead or dying. A few borewells in the vicinity emit methane gas that gets ignited when a match is struck, while the water in the open well in the village has turned brown and stinky. As the wells and all the water bodies in the area have been contaminated, the village administration is supplying drinking water to the locals through water tankers.
A lake near the quarry has turned into a cesspit. “Just a few years ago, contractors reared fish in the lake after taking it on lease from the village administration. After this dumpyard came up, fish have started dying and the lake is now just a sewage-filled pond,” said Bharath, another resident.
AMC Engineering College near the quarry has been served a notice by the BBMP for letting out untreated sewage into the raja kaluve that leads to the lake. “The college neither has a sewage treatment plant nor a septic tank and its underground drainage pipe directly opens into the canal outside,” said Muniraju, Joint Commissioner, Bommanahalli, BBMP.
Spooky scenes
The quarry is giving sleepless nights to the residents staying close to the dumpyard as they see flames and smoke bursting out. “It’s spooky to see the area at night especially,” said 14-year-old Manjunath, who recalls seeing an amputated human hand in a plastic bag at the dumpyard. “I initially thought that someone was murdered and dumped here, but later I was told that it was wastage from a hospital nearby,” he said.
