Team Herald
PANJIM: St Inez nullah should be officially declared a ‘creek’ and a coastal water body so as to bring it within the ambit of the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA). This will curtail encroachment and pollution, a majority of citizens and experts who had gathered to chalk out an action plan on the creek demanded at a workshop organised by Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB), on Friday, to elicit views of experts, officials and citizens that would be included in an action plan on the creek to be proposed to the government.
Dr Sangeeta Sonak, Director of CENRM, said that salinity is prevalent throughout the St Inez creek and tidal water reaches up to three stations down the origin of the creek.
Activist Kashinath Shetye, whose plea on the creek is pending in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) pressed for the declaration of the nullah as a creek.
Environment Director Srineth Kothwale said that by demarcating the high tide line the department can declare it as a coastal water body but then most of the structures on the creeks banks will have to be demolished. “We can declare it but I don’t know how many would digest it,” he said.
Goa State Bio Diversity Board member Dr Joe D’Souza said that either the hutments along the creek should be removed or sewage connections provided to them.
Panjim MLA Siddharth Kunkolienkar referred to the water body as a nullah.
Refusing to remove hutments, Kunkolienkar said it is posh colonies around the creek that pollute its waters and not the hutments. Declaring the ‘nullah’ as a creek is a subject of debate, Kunkolinekar said.
