Delhi's Holy Yamuna River A Bubbling Mass Of Methane & Garbage - DPA

[hatrack]

A drive to clean the polluted River Yamuna is in progress. File Photo: AP

Methane gas is bubbling up from the black-coloured stew, and the water smells horrible. The holy river Yamuna, once teeming with life, is practically dead, yet a homeless man is rinsing his mouth with the noxious liquid.

Under a nearby bridge, scavengers on a self-made raft are fishing out votive offerings that drivers throw from their cars to Yamuna, which is worshipped by Hindus as a goddess. But it is people and politics that are choking Yamuna to death, and ecologists are warning of a looming environmental catastrophe as World Water Day approaches on March 22.

The river, New Delhi’s lifeline, is reputed to be India’s most polluted as well as one of the most toxic waterways worldwide. The Yamuna provides an example of Indian government policies that are focused on economic growth, often at the cost of the environment.

In the meantime, the river is dying a slow yet unpublicized death, partly because it has mostly vanished from public sight behind concrete after the river was moved. A highway now runs along the old riverbed. Access to the river is possible at only a few points and glimpses of it can be gained only from road or subway bridges. Vimlendu K Jha, executive director of the environmental organization Swechha, estimates that 60 per cent of New Delhi’s 14 million people have never seen the river. “How can you save the Yamuna if nobody ever sees it?” he asks.

EDIT

http://beta.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/article246228.ece

[LiberalFighter]

1. How many factories spewing it out because of products made for Americans?

By money grubbing American corporations not wanting to follow the laws in America?

[XemaSab]

2. Not to sound resigned

but the Americans had to shit all over there rivers before something was done.

Hopefully, within my lifetime, "waste" will become feedstock for some other process, and these rivers will be saved.