The city of Chennai generates an enormous amount of waste approximating 3000 tonnes daily. There are three sites of dumping: Kodungaiyur – 15 kms North of city, Otteri (Nammalvarpet) – inside the city. – (Defunct now) and Perungudi- 25 kms South of city. The Kodungaiyur and Otteri Dump yards are approximately 25 years old and 50 and 10 Acres (extent) respectively. They receive a daily Solid Waste amount to the tune of 1500 tonnes and 350 tonnes respectively through lorries and trucks. Perungudi on the other hand receives 1500 tonnes to 1800 tonnes daily through trucks and lorries from six zone of the city. Over the past two years the Govt.of Tamil Nadu has initiated certain new measures at garbage collection and disposal, these include promoting privately run cooperative conservancy operations such as Exnora international and others. Apart from this, Chennai Environmental Services Onyx (CES Onyx), the Singapore-based conservancy agency appointed by the Chennai Corporation to clean up three zones in Chennai corporation region.

Commissioned in the year 1980, it has been defunct from 1985. It is meant to receive 1,400 tonnes per day of solid waste, and a project to process the waste into power, bid and approved over the last three years, is languishing in the offices of the enlightened State administrators. The design capacity of the Sewage Treatment Plant is 45 MLD (Million liters a day). 15 pumping stations that collect the sewage that is generated in their surrounding environs pump it to the Perungudi Sewage Treatment Plant where it is received through a myriad of pipelines.

The Alandur Municipality Dump Yard:- The Alandur Municipality has developed a Dump Yard of 15 Acres on the Western Periphery of the Wetland Study Area. The Average depth of the wetland is around 4 Mts today (2002) from approximately ox 7 Mts (1992). It gets 65 tonnes of Municipal Refuse daily while the local bodies in the neighbourhood such as St. Thomas Mount, Pallavaram Cantonment Board, Ullagaram- Puzhuthivakkam and Pallavaram have started despatching about 20 tonne of garbage to the site daily. It was found that most of the local bodies burn garbage to reduce the volume of the refuse. This has to be prevented as these emit carcinogenic gases such as Dioxin.

The Perungudi Dump Yard is a large producer of dioxins and other poisonous gases. In any other country, waste dumps like Perungudi would attract protests and agitations. The heat caused by the Burning Fires can be felt almost a kilometre away on the Arterial Old Mahabalipuram Road. These fires release uncontained dioxins and furans. In the absence of source segregation, the lack of Bio-medical waste management is a grave error on part of the authorities. This is practiced in developing countries around the world. However, this awareness is yet to dawn in India.

People in the study area get Potable water supply through the Public distribution system. During the period of Non-supply and in the summer, they rely on the available open wells and bore wells. Almost all the settlements in the region have either an open well or a bore well. Apart from this, the civic bodies also help the people through community bore wells and open wells. The groundwater table is found at a depth of 1m in the Rainy season and at a depth of 10 m in the summer.

Course of flow of Water into Wetland

The water into the wetland flows in through a myriad system of interlinked channels that converge into it in the southern suburb of Vellacheri and Taramani in the north and Medavakkam on the West. Although illegal, numerous sewage and storm-water drains in the city are opened into these channels that bring in a lot of toxics and contaminate the fragile ecosystem of the wetland.