After the Poondi reservoir, the Water Resources Department (WRD) has started releasing water from Cholavaram reservoir that is used as a buffer source for the city’s water supply.
The department is monitoring the water-level at Chembarambakkam and Red Hills reservoirs that are nearly 80% and 84% full respectively. Officials said the Cholavaram reservoir gets inflow from Tamaraipakkam anicut through lower supply channel. As the water level had to be kept at one foot below the full reservoir level, nearly 215 cusecs (cubic feet per second) was released into a 1.5-km long Poochikaal channel that joins the Kosasthalaiyar river.
“We decided to release some amount of water into the channel instead of diverting it to Red Hills reservoir as the water level is nearly 18.75 feet against its full reservoir level of 21.20 ft. The tanks upstream of the waterbody are yet to fill up and the shutters may be opened only when the water level crosses 19.2 ft. A spell of rain of 80 mm-90 mm will be needed for the storage to increase,” said an official.
Similarly, the water level at Chembarambakkam reservoir is closely monitored. At present, water level stands at 21.18 ft against its maximum level of 24 ft. Once the level touches 22 ft, the department plans to discharge water into the Adyar river to maintain the minimum gap of 600 million cubic feet in the reservoir.
Some of the major tanks in Sriperumbudur and Pillaipakkam, which are located upstream of Chembarambakkam, are yet to reach their maximum level, the officials said.
Meanwhile, a temporary causeway on Melanoor-Meyyur Road across the river and downstream of Poondi reservoir was damaged as the Kosasthalaiyar continues to carry about 1,000 cusecs of surplus water released from Poondi. The river has a carrying capacity of about 80,000 cusecs of water.
Residents said they had to take a detour of at least 10 km to reach Meyyur now. Girija Pushparaj of Eraiyur village said people now had to travel by bus via Vengal and Periyapalayam to reach Meyyur as the causeway had been damaged.
Minister for Milk and Dairy Development S.M. Nasar and officials of Tiruvallur district administration inspected the site on Friday. As the water discharge may be decreased from Poondi on weekend, steps were being taken to repair the causeway. Moreover, work to build a ₹ 14.95-crore bridge across the river proposed during the previous regime would be accelerated, the Minister said in a press release.
