Sewage kills fish in India's Gomati River

LUCKNOW, India -- A fisherman for nearly 50 years, Ramakant Nishad now sits idle because the sewage-filled Gomati River that runs through this northern Indian city cannot breed fish anymore.

Nishad's two sons already have taken to collecting rags for money. He, too, is learning the intricacies of handling scrap.

"The Gomati River has turned poisonous ... It doesn't have fish; all have died," said Nishad, sitting in his mud hut this week on the banks of the river flowing through Lucknow, capital of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.

Ramakant is among more than 500 people whose families for generations eked out their living by selling fish.

"This river was earlier full of fish of different varieties. All of a sudden the fish have vanished," said Sanju, 24, a fisherman who now pedals a cycle rickshaw. He uses only one name.

Thousands of fish in the Gomati River died in June when monsoon rains sent a huge overflow of untreated sewage into the water, causing a drastic drop in oxygen levels, officials said.

N.S. Nagpure, a senior scientist in the government-run National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources, said the fish were already ailing from the persistent flow of untreated sewage.

"On June 27, the flow increased and the dissolved oxygen level decreased, resulting in the sudden death of the fish," Nagpure said.

It was the second time in seven years that thousands of fish had perished in the Gomati River. In 1996, the discharge of untreated factory effluents into the river proved deadly.

Can't be revived

But Nagpure said even if new fish were introduced this time they could not survive because plants and small life forms that they eat are also gone.

"No amount of ranching -- introduction of fresh fish -- can revive the aquatic life in the river," Nagpure said.

After the 1996 spill, the state government adopted a law making it compulsory for factories to install facilities to treat the effluent and remove hazards.

This time the offender was the local municipality, whose 23 sewage outlets dump untreated sewage into the river.

People living near the river said the color of the water had become murkier in the past few weeks.

The state government plans to pump fresh water into the Gomati River from a nearby dam after monsoon rains stop next month. It already has started dredging operations to clean the river, Rai said.

The cleanup is doubly important because Lucknow's 2 million people depend on the river for drinking water, said Shailaja Kant Mishra, a senior police officer and an environmentalist working with Social Scavengers, an organization involved in cleanup efforts. The water is treated before being sold for drinking.