River pollution around Dhaka city has reached such a level that the groundwater system where the aquifers are recharged from the riverbeds is being contaminated, a recent study shows.

In the seven months from November to April, virtually no water but only stinky mucky liquid flows in the gradually narrowing rivers - the Buriganga, Shitalakshya, Turag and Balu - as no governments could stop discharge of liquid waste into them.

A recent study jointly done by the World Bank and the Institute of Water Modelling (IWM) says: 'The groundwater system is being contaminated in areas where aquifers are recharged from the riverbeds. The pollution is creeping towards the central part of the city with time.'

The study mentions groundwater in Hazaribagh, home of toxic tannery industries, as the most affected. 'It is quite likely that in the long run groundwater would be affected from the surface at solid waste or industrial effluent dumping ground,' the report adds.

Currently, 85 percent of the total demand of city water is met through groundwater sources as most of the surface water is contaminated, according to Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (Wasa).

The IWM survey shows there are over 300 various effluent discharge outlets in Dhaka city and Narayanganj. Of these, 19 outlets carry major discharge of mixed effluents of industrial and household waste which is falling into the rivers around the capital.

Movements by environmentalists as well as demands by the civil society could not change the situation. Now the situation is so worse that no living organism survives in the stinky thick black liquid of the Buriganga, Shitalakshya, Balu and Turag.

The foul odour of the polluted black water strikes the nostril even at half a kilometre distance. The pollution has become so 'usual' that the Department of Environment now does not measure its level anymore.

The overall situation suggests that the city dwellers have no immediate respite from it.

BUET RESEARCH ON RIVER POLLUTION

A recent research by Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) shows the pollution level in the Buriganga, Shitalakshya, Balu and most parts of the Turag so high that simply no living organism can survive in their waters.

A three-year research finds that some invertebrates and small organisms come to life in these rivers when water flow increases in the rains. But these life forms completely disappear in the dry season, the researchers add.