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| Sunday, 25 August 2002 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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A landmark in Colombo city: Beira Lake - the beautiful cesspool by Aryadasa Ratnasinghe The Beira lake is one of the principal features that adorns the city of Colombo, and it has received the attention of the Portuguese (1505-1656), the dutch (1656-1796) and the British (1796-1948), who ruled Sri Lanka for 443 years. One of the earliest references to the lake is found in 'The conquest of Ceylon' written by Rev. Fr. Fernao de Queyroz and published in 1688. He says that when king Vijayabahu (1519-1521) laid siege to Colombo in 1521, the Portuguese captain Lopo de Brito "pursued the attackers, killing and wounding them, till they reached a brook which was later dammed into a lake for better fortification of the city". Fr. Queyroz adds that when large reinforcements arrived from Goa (a State in West India taken over by Portugal in 1510), in 1555, " They built some houses giving rise to the city of Colombo, which had within it, the mound of St. Laurence, and was surrounded by a 'capana' (kalapuwa), a lake nearly three leagues and a half in length (10.5 miles), which in summer admitted access to Colombo in some places with water to the waist" During the siege of 1578, King Mayadunne (1521-1581) of Sitawaka, seeing that Portuguese boats were floating in the lake, determined to drain it but without success as it was valorously defended by the Portuguese". His son, King Rajasinha I (1581-1593) besieged Colombo several times, and drained the lake dry twice by canals, one of which is San Sebastian canal. Modern The Portuguese enlarged the city of Colombo, to include the modern Pettah, extending to what was known as Kayman' Gate, its Sinhala corruption being 'Kaiman Dorakada'. Kayman is the corrupt form of the Caribbean word for the crocodile, in general use among the Dutch in the East. Crocodiles were put on purpose into the moat guarding the gate leading to the city during Dutch occupation of the island. One of the chief defences of the city was this artificial lake strewn with small islands. The lake was an extensive sheet of water encircling more than half of the city. The eastern portion of the lake extended up to the foot of the three hillocks known as San Sebastian, Hulftsdorp and Wolvendaal. St. John's canal commemorates the outlet of the lake into the sea, and Dam Street got its name from the dam. King Rajasinha I led a formidable array of fully-armed men from Sitawaka in several divisions, and arriving before the walls of the city, encamped again at Boralugoda (Wolvendaal) and on the elevated portions of the marshes of Dematagoda, which in consequences, are still known as Maligawatte and Maligakanda. At this time, the chief defence of the Portuguese was the lake, and the enemy offensive was repulsed with great success, by thwarting the plans of the besieging Sinhala army. The Beira lake, the polluted landmark of the city, as we see today covers a surface area of 65 hectares, with an average depth of two metres, except towards the East where the depth is nearly 6 metres. The catchment area of the lake extends to 450 hectares over flat land. Among the four main basins, the one towards the East, extending to 45 hectares in area, is said to be the largest and the deepest. The lake at the time of the colonial rule in 1905, had a surface area of 172 hectares (425 acres), and a volume of 85 million cubic feet a water at the top surface level. It has become smaller due to land reclamation by the government and filling up for the construction of new roads and buildings. Siltation has also to some extent reduced the area of the lake from what it was before. How did the lake come to be known as Beira? One story is that a Portuguese engineer by the name Beiro dammed the lake at the location now known as Dam Street. The other story is that the Portuguese named it Beira, comparing it to the Beira seaport, the capital of Mozambique, South-East Africa, where they were in occupation prior to 1506. Earlier the lake was known as the Colombo Lake, and the name Beira became popular about 80 years ago. Proposals Among the British administration who took an interest in the Beira lake was the governor Sir Henry Blake (1903-1907). Taking into consideration the proposals made from time to time to connect the lake with the harbour by means of a canal and locks, the governor appointed a committee composed of F.A. Cooper, the Director of Public Works, W.H. Jackson, the Principal Collector of Customs, and E.M. de Courcy Short, the Chairman of the Colombo Municipality, and J.G. Wardrop, a mercantile executive, to report on proposals to connect the lake to the harbour. The Beira lake could have become one of the more pleasing amenities of the city, but, for a long time, it was neglected and as the population increased, it became a menace to the health of the inhabitants. Much of the sewage of the city found its way into the lake as the easiest way of disposing them, in addition to discharges from house-drains and streets. The shanty dwellers who live close to the lake dumped all their muck into it as the most easiest way of disposing them, regardless of consequences. In addition to these, chemical waste from factories also now finds its way into the lake. When there is less water pouring into the lake during the dry season, a algae growth appears at the surface level. This allows for an aerobic condition that occur at the bottom, forming gases like methane (marsh-gas, the simplest hydrocarbon found wherever the decomposition of vegetable matter is taking place under water), ammonia (a pungent compound of nitrogen and hydrogen) and other chemical waste that give out an obnoxious effluvia emanating there from, quite obviously methane. The Beira Lake Restoration Committee, after much research, identified sewage and sullage getting into the lake through illegal connections, which has been found to be a major source of pollution, the monitoring of which is very difficult and hardly practical. Soap and other detergents that find their way to the lake, easily pollute the water, and there is no way out of it. When rainfall is low, stagnation rides high, causing the water in the lake to become easily polluted. In 1998, Stage I of the Beira Lake Restoration Project was launched, but actually it has done nothing to meet the pollution problem. It goes on as usual since the people have no interest on what is happening. The Colombo Municipality alone cannot handle the situation and public interest is also vital to solve the problem. Prof. Patrick Geddes, the Town Planner, writing in 1920, says "At sunset especially, looking over the lake to the palm forest of the lakeside bungalows, this is by far the finest park view in Colombo, and only second to the totally different seascape of Galle Face". Today it is more a cesspool than a lake fouling the environment, though it was one of the charming sceneries of the city. |
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