LAHORE: The latest smog situation has left Lahore in a
choking haze, but even in the past environmental experts and activists
have been vocal about air pollution issue. Now NASA (the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration) has pointed out that burning of
crop stubbles may be a major reason for a smog blanket in New Delhi, and
also in Lahore, as the map shows several places in West Punjab that
have thermal emissions.Both East and West Punjab have
two growing seasons — one from May to September and the other from
November to April. In May and November, Punjab farmers typically sow
crops and vegetables for the next season; but before sowing, they often
set fire to fields to clear stubbles of previous crop and make them
suitable for next sowing.
Experts’ views vary on the matter. “While
burning is a major problem... I don’t believe this is the reason why
the smog has seen a spike this year,” says environmentalist Aleem Butt.
“Action should definitely be taken for burning crop stubbles, but in the
meantime we are being invaded by noxious gases from coal power plants.
Another very big cause which is being ignored is the high level of
deforestation this year. Too many trees were cut down first for the
Kalma Underpass and now the Orange Line.”
As for an
alternative method for crop stubble burning, the best method is to
plough the stalks back into the earth where they can decompose into
humus.
Environmentalist and researcher Noman Ashraf says
that labs of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are not
operational, and without any empirical evidence, there can hardly be any
crackdown on factories and other offenders.“There are
third-party labs which are doing this work, but the EPA has not bothered
to renew their collaborative licences with them either,” he says.
According
to him, the Air Quality Index monitors were installed at five points
during the last decade, but because the instruments were not calibrated
they eventually became useless. “If we look at China and India, they at
least have figures to go by,” says Mr Ashraf.
“If the
EPA claims to have regular readings then, under the public’s right to
know, these figures should be uploaded on a website or publicised
through media.”
EPA argues that it has state-of-the-art
labs and regular readings. “We only had one purchasing issue...
otherwise all our equipment is working just fine,” says an official of
the EPA. Now with air pollution levels high enough to cause concern, EPA
has worked out readings of between November 2 and 4.
And these reveal some startling figures.
For
example, nitric oxide should not be more than 40mcg per cubic metre but
during this period Mall Road saw over 306mcg/cubic metre, and Mohlanwal
(near Bahria Town) 332mcg/cubic metre.
Particles less
than 2.5µm (micrometres) are called PM2.5. They are approximately 1/30th
the average width of a human hair. The benchmark for PM2.5 should be
35mcg/cubic metre, but none of the figures recorded during the period
fell within this range.
Readings were similar for PM10,
whose levels should have been below 150, but were recorded to be higher
in Shahdara area (264). However in other places levels were below 150.
Sulphur
dioxide, which should be well below 120mcg per cubic metre, was seen
highest in Mominpura, an appalling 1,373mcg per cubic metre. The carbon
monoxide levels, which should have been below 5msg/cubic metre, were
recorded at 21mcg/ cubic metre on Mall Road, and 17mcg/cubic metre at
Mohlanwal, while at other places the levels were slightly higher than 5.
Meanwhile, Ashraf says the issue of crop stubble
burning may have been misinterpreted. “This is nothing new in the region
and has been happening for decades. But this recent spike is because
farmers in East Punjab, who had originally been selling their wheat
stalks for biomass plants, burnt their agri-waste this year after their
requested price was turned down by the biomass plants.”
A
sharecropper farmer of Okara area says that seeds and other agriculture
inputs are so costly nowadays that it is inconceivable to buy more land
only in order to plough the stalks back in the ground. “Burning is much
more convenient for us.”
Naseemur Rehman Shah, a
spokesperson for EPA, says his department has urged the agriculture
department to take notice of the problem, but no action has so far been
taken.
He too doesn’t agree with the view that crop
burning is the major reason behind the smog. “Climatic change is
happening at a global level, and every region is affected. Smog or fog
that used to come later in the year has happened earlier this time.”
But
when asked about the trees cut down in Lahore because of various
development projects, Rehman says the EPA did not disallow it because
that was the last resort. “The government has announced that for every
public sector project one per cent of the total cost has to go into tree
plantation,” he says.
He adds that even corridors like
the Motorway are having trees planted along them. “Sometimes tree
cutting has been allowed because it was the need of the day,” he says.
There
are also other factors contributing to air pollution and one of these
is factories, he says. “While crop stubble burning is a serious issue,
most of the fumes are coming from East Punjab; but at the same time from
within Lahore, we have factories that cannot use natural gas and
therefore burn all kinds of materials including rubber to create fuel.”
He
says that around 300 units have been shut down by the Punjab government
in the recent past and these include large- and small-scale industries.
Regarding air pollution, Rehman says that currently
there are about 3,000 cases under trial in environment tribunals from
all over Punjab.
But apart from industries, there is the huge issue of traffic as well.
Rehman
says that traffic congestion, bad roads, increasing number of vehicles,
old vehicles with bad engines, and banned vehicles were main causes and
many were still operating. The two-stroke auto and cycle rickshaws both
are seen running despite being banned.
“We are fully
aware of the situation and the ban is being implemented slowly. After
all changes cannot happen overnight. A decade ago we were worried about
how the air pollution issue was being neglected but by introducing
alternative transport projects like the Orange Line... the government is
moving in the right direction.”
“These projects are
most environment-friendly,” says Rehman. “Orange Line will run on
electricity, new LTC buses will use CNG and other Euro 2 and 3 standard
buses will use good quality diesel.”
Rafay Alam, an
environmental lawyer, says unless there are proper metering systems, not
just in Lahore but all over Punjab, no one could make any conclusive
claims.
“First off, monitors are needed to tell us what
the pollution levels are,” he says. “When we get accurate data the
pollutants will be precisely identified and so a proper response can be
formulated.”
