An Appreciation to Mr Rohan Seneviratne

An Appreciation to Mr Rohan Seneviratne

sent by Kashyapa A. S. Yapa,

Riobamba, Ecuador. 24^th march 2013

Dear Mr Rohan Seneviratne,

I thank you for making all Sri Lankans proud, wherever we are: at the IESL, you showed us vision doesn’t die, in spite of the seven plagues that brought our country to near-ruin; you proved us whatever mission can be accomplished when you work to a long range plan; you fortified our self-belief by incorporating the local talent in executing successfully those plans.

I was awestruck at how you, an electrical engineer by profession, managed to jump from trash collection to flood prevention to land sales, without missing a beat. Why should I be? After all, all that is about living your life, keeping your eyes open and looking for ways to solve daily issues. I felt guilty, for not being able to contribute to the place I knew, as much as I could. So, here comes my two cents worth.

Well, to tell you who am I briefly: I graduated as a civil engineer in 1981 from Pera, in the same batch as Arjuna Manamperi and Nihal Wikremaratne, worked for 4 years in State sector and left for US for post-grad studies. I finished a PhD from Berkeley in 1993 and was fortunate to be able to step across the Mexican border, which opened up a whole new world to me. I relearned engineering from our ancestors, especially the socio-environmental concepts of it -appreciation of which are totally lacking in conventional academic careers- and began sharing my experiences with the downtrodden and the young tech people.  I have been volunteering full time with local governments since I started my ‘long walk home’ in 1993, in fact I worked 11 out of last 20 years without pay, but the deep-rooted corruption everywhere keeps me without clients!

I am attaching a short CV to open you to my box of ‘treasures’.  No, I am not seeking a job, but would love to collaborate in whatever capacity with your wonderful endeavor to clean-up and cure our sick motherland, from wherever I am.  For the time being, I will share with you some of my ‘crazy’ ideas; some have seen at least partial implementation, the rest still waiting for unplugged-ears.

Solid waste collection:

I agree with your approach: clean up the streets at any cost first; goes a long way to educate people. (I remember once picking trash with Sharif Abdullah walking around his block in Portland- Oregon, and seeing the amazement and appreciation in the eyes of his neighbors.) I myself have to fight the temptation to dump trash at a dirty street corner.

Now, the term ‘environmental police’ sounds an oxymoron to me, knowing how putrefied our police force is. Yes, Singapore and US have managed to keep the society ‘clean’ by the force of law, but see where those societies ended up: pretty much ‘brain-washed’. They at least have political leaderships with some semblance of cleanliness and fairness that the society could follow, even grudgingly. And we, in Sri Lanka ...?

I would suggest an integrated approach to this problem: educating the vendor, the consumer and the politician. You have already taken the first step in allocating formal vending spaces for pavement hawkers. (The informal economy carries the greatest share of garbage dumping.) I would start with putting a hefty tax on unrecyclable one-time-use bags, plates, etc., and forcing the vendors to use alternatives. Here the politicians should come-in, subsidizing, in the beginning at least, recyclable alternatives (we all will gain at the end) so that the consumers won’t grudge. Next step would be to educate the consumers and home owners to separate the trash. Here I would include urban composting and gardening lessons too. (Promote urban organic gardening, on floor or on roofs, with subsidies on seeds and other products, as that will also capture a lot of the rain runoff, reducing your problems with urban flooding!) Accompany that with city regulations that force every flat, home or office owner to sweep one’s portion of the street, at least once a day. I loved that you hired people to do all that sweeping (instead of buying those monster gas-guzzling sweepers), and don’t worry, they won’t lose their jobs; they can be re-employed to daily collect the sorted trash in their carts and put them in large bins located at strategic points every few blocks. That way, garbage trucks won’t block traffic nor destroy the streets. You can send the recyclable items (including composting matter) to rural villages; organize small business ventures with them, so that they sell you back the separated items and the compost.  Sorry I have reduced the trash-traffic for your night trains to Puttalam (I love the idea) but we still have enough rotten politicians that you would never want to recycle.

Reducing urban flood risk:

This is the first time I heard someone with authority talk about the use of wetlands to prevent flooding, congratulations! Believe it or not, that´s what our forefathers had always done, since 2000 years ago (http://kyapa.netau.net/crianza/waternurt.htm). Urban flooding has its roots in: speculative land-filling and neighborhood (slum) construction; stream-encroaching roads, culverts and retaining walls; trash-plugging; and sedimentation. Once you remove the trash and prevent sewer water from entering a wetland, it becomes a real valuable asset: absorbs flood waters; decontaminates the grey water; promotes natural fish, bird and plant habitats; moderates the air temperature; provides irrigation water in droughts; permits aquatic transportation routes and recreational navigation; and of course, sends sky-high the value of the land around it.

As you have correctly noted, upper catchments are the first and the best action areas to control flooding. The priority areas should be lower Kelani Ganga affluent catchments and Bolgoda lake drainage basin.  If we slow down their flash flood increments, we have pretty much won the war, as we can direct the city-wide runoff there. (This way we also eliminate the effect of high tide from Colombo flood equation.) I would get the local communities involved in reforestation and erosion control works in individual lands because the farmers also benefit enormously.  That essentially slows down the runoff and reduces sedimentation.  I would also involve the farmers in constructing small reservoirs there, so that they get more irrigation and spring waters. If we offer irrigation water to highland rice fields, we can buy-out mostly non-productive, low-lying, rice fields which really are better off as wetlands. Here you need to pressure the local governments to forcefully apply the rules on illegal landfills, which are inflating these land values. By linking all these wetlands to streams through wide, clean and unobstructed canal systems, we can move a huge volume of water away from rivers and into wetlands during heavy rains.

The other half of this issue is solved if we allow the soil to absorb the rain and runoff, especially in the city.  As I said before, promoting individual home gardens and porous paving surfaces (like gravel walkways or parking lots) can store a huge volume of water under intense rain, and when that water seeps out to the drains, the flood would have already passed!  I would even push for property tax reductions for homeowners keeping more of their land free to absorb water. Municipalities too should replace much of their impermeable paving areas before preaching to the citizens.  In densely populated areas, the trick is to not transport the runoff far, but contain most of it within the block itself, using small flower plots, green recreational areas, etc. I would also give incentives to new home developers for collecting grey water separately and decontaminating it, as that promotes a green-space culture within every residential block.  Since you have already identified the low-lying residential neighborhoods (mostly slums) and are planning to relocate them, a recurring social aspect of this problem will also be removed.

Now, I would plead you not to resort to dike-off water ways and install pumping stations. It undermines the whole thesis behind the use of wetlands to absorb flood waters. Free flow of water, to and fro between the river and the wetland, is essential also for all the complementary benefits it brings: nutrient transport; fish migration; navigation; and keeping the operational costs to a minimum.  Of course, there would always be trouble flood-spots here and there, but you can´t solve those problems with fixed pumping stations.  I would suggest keeping a few mobile pumps, located at a few strategic points, if the need arises.

Easing traffic congestion:

Though you didn’t give details about this topic in the talk, I am sure your team has already identified the real bottle-necks around the city. My approach to this issue goes with a basic philosophy: integral solutions should consider both the rich and the poor; private cars, buses, trains, pedestrians, cyclists, nobody should have priority over the other; you can move people from private, individual modes of transport to collective modes by providing other cheaper, quicker and convenient facilities, but not by the rulebook.  In Ecuador they say: ‘the moment you apply a law, people come up with a trick to skip it’.

I would begin creating FREE public transportation services around the worst trouble spots. Yes, see how it grabs your attention? Works the same way for car owners: why would you burn gas, hustle the crowds and expose the car to robbery, if you move about free. Well, the catch is, it is free for short hops only; you can get in the bus and get out free, within a 10-15 block area of the congested zone. This service can be provided by small, frequent buses running on electric battery-packs (for better maneuverability and reduced emissions) crisscrossing the area.  Of course we need the support from the Municipality in enforcing limited and expensive street parking in those zones. We should install 4-5 transfer stations around the zone for feeder-buses which charge fees. This feeder service operates from: transfer stations around other congested spots; and long distance bus/train terminals or cheap car-parking lots, located along the city perimeter. To get around the city, people may have to transfer to several buses, so a single fare should get a person to his/her destination.  Also recommend a less frequent circular bus service, for people carrying heavy packages or for those enjoying sitting in one bus. Provide some express feeder services also, but at a slightly higher fare.

Providing exclusive lanes for collective transportation is a great idea, but only for the vendors of subway systems! These lanes make life inconvenient for other users of the same roads; half the service always runs empty on exclusive lanes; traps and squeezes more and more passengers into exclusive traffic paths, forcing the better-off again into their cars; and when the system collapses, you are left with no options but the subway. I don’t need to cite examples since you have travelled much more than I have.

Within Colombo, the train service shows you how pathetic exclusive lanes can be. Don´t take me wrong, I am a great fan of the train, but for long distance travel.  Within the city, it does nothing but disrupts the flow of the rest of the traffic; occupies valuable high ground; and makes life miserable for those living close-by. I would eliminate all train traffic within the city, and create a circular train service along the city perimeter to take the long distance passengers to their destinations away from Colombo. (If you are going from Galle to Kandy, why in the world you have to pass through Fort?)

Water ways are exclusive lanes, but built for another purpose.  They can provide transportation services, but I would not want to see speed boats competing for passengers, as I saw in Amazon and Orinoco. They destroy the aquatic life as well as the natural stream banks, while creating a noise nuisance. I would advocate only leisure travel on water, unless we can find an economic hovercraft.

Well, this ‘short introduction’ to ‘yapa’s view on Colombo’ has gotten too long already. Before I finish, I urge you to take that ‘quick, quick, quick’ advice from South Korea with a lot of salt. They quickly built an artificial river in Seoul, but are taking eons to clean up the messed-up real rivers. When dealing with the nature, especially with water, I fast learned the value of ‘Ikman kotai’.

Thank you very much for your time. I have been dreaming of visiting Sri Lanka for the past 6 years and hopefully this year I may be able to wake up there. If so, I would love to meet your team members to have a chat. Even otherwise, I will be happy to collaborate, if needed.

Sincerely,

Kashyapa A. S. Yapa,

Riobamba, Ecuador. 24^th march 2013.