A kingfisher flew over a cormorant (fishing bird) perched atop a survey stone that stood in a vast pool of blackish water. This dark pool merged into a plateau of white granite dust and rubble; contrasted by sooty black cakes of industrial waste; and large mounds of plastic gunny bags stashed with more industrial waste. The blowing winds whipped up white and black dust carrying a noxious stench, leaving one with burning red eyes.

On the Krishnagiri-Hosur NH 48 near Chappadi in Krishnagiri district, a vast swathe of wetland has been turned into a dumping ground of toxic industrial waste in plain sight. The 0.34 ha of wetland is an expanse toxic bed of industrial waste brazenly dumped as a landfill by the patta owner defying “requests” by the revenue department to not to dump waste.

This wetland-turned-toxic dump in Nallaganakothapalli village has a shared boundary with the Sinnayan lake that irrigates hundreds of hectares of lush paddy fields and coconut groves. The lake itself eventually overflows to fill up three other lakes.

Wetlands abutting waterbodies also function as filters to recharge groundwater aquifers, and help replenish groundwater tables. The seepage from Sinnayan lake had formed a waterhole, but the water has now turned black merging with the toxic dump. “When the monsoons come, this toxic landfill will leach into the ground water, and there will be reverse seepage into the lake itself and into the narrow waterways that carry waters to the fields, says Thimmaraj, of Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Paadhukaappu Sangam, who had petitioned the district administration recently. “But, we are told this is patta land and that the owner is refusing to heed.”

Pollution on a scale that is potentially contaminating ground water, hundreds of hectares of lush wetlands (Nanjai classified lands) and poisoning a string of lakes however has not been dealt with as much as a rap on the knuckle.

“We had advised the owner not to dump the debris. The records show one Sattur Booch Pandari as the owner based in Mumbai. When I called, I was told this was patta land and that the BDO has no jurisdiction and that it was Revenue department’s jurisdiction. They would do as they wish on their land, I was told. But, I too have taken photos of the earthmovers dumping waste,” says R. Kala, the Block Development Officer of Shoolagiri.

“Even if it is land, they could as much use only soil as landfill,” says R. Rameshbabu, Tahsildar of Shoolagiri. And yet, the revenue department there has done nothing, leaving it to the farmers to petition. “My petition was forwarded to the Pollution Board,” says Thimmaraj.

Notice to owner

Claiming land ownership for immunity to pollute and impunity from action was also a thumb-on-the-nose-wiggle for a string of environmental legislations and well-settled decrees banning even garbage dump on patta lands. In 2023, the National Green Tribuanal warned landowners against garbage dumps on their own patta lands causing environmental hazard.

Here, the conscious dump of industrial waste as a landfill on a land with shared bund with a lake for elevation is bound to cause reverse seepage of toxic wastes poisoning an entire ecosystem below and above the ground. To this, BDO Kala said, “they will prepare a notice and issue it to the owner.”

The brazeness to contaminate community commons in open-sight on the highway that is the passage for all official convoys was also revealing of regulatory failures that justify protests against rapid industrialisation in the midst of farmlands.