Water safe to drink despite oil spill - Water Board

The National Water Supplies and Drainage Board (NWSDB) confirmed that the water distributed in Colombo is perfectly safe for consumption despite the oil leak detected last week in the Kelani River.

Deputy General Manager, NWSDB, Ranjith Perera said that the Ambatale water treatment plant is clean from oil residue and has restarted its normal functions by late afternoon on Friday(28).

"The water treatment plant suspended its operations to clean the system and it has been completed. The water is treated according to the standards we always followed," Perera explained.

The water supply within Colombo, Sri Jayawardanepura Kotte and Dehiwala- Mount Lavinia was disrupted on August 27 and 28 after the water in the Kelani River was found to have been contaminated with oil due to a leak of a fuel line in a popular frizzy drink manufacturing plant located close to the river. The CEA suspended the license of the drink manufacturing plant.

The company has explained to the CEA officials that the leak was due to an accident. Chairman of the Central Environment Authority (CEA) Prof. Lal Mervin Dharmasiri said, CEA officials will hand over the final report to him tomorrow (August 31).

"CEA officials inspected the manufacturing plant twice and as they reported that the company has taken measures to repair the leak," he added.

An expert of the field Prof. Ajith de Alwis, Professor at the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering of the University of Moratuwa, emphasised the urgent need of the industries to give prominent attention to risk assessments and properly implement them to avoid these kind of pollutions.

"They are more concerned of the trade and business rather than technical excellence of the management. In general, multinational companies may be following the risk assessment recommendations but may not be properly implemented in Sri Lanka," he pointed out.