Reservoir sand extraction flops

Gladdening news that Thomas Issac informed the house of Kerala Assembly in the Q&A session today
was the dismal performance of the mission launched to win sand from the reservoirs of Kerala to
supplement the need by the EMS housing scheme to start with. In fact, a geologist like me, knew better
that this mission of the Issac-Rajendran duo will fail ultimately. Either these chiefs were incorrectly
briefed by the concerned directorates, or they made an attempt to overestimate the human
decidedness over the basic tenets of science.

Well it is high time that we as a society pay little more heed to the science rather than to emotion or
blind enthusiasm. The administrators are only a slice of the society at large and hence the scientifically
unsound decisions mirror the IQ of the society. I am sure that the entire society need not be blamed;
instead the sycophants are to be put under limelight.

The rock weathering is the process that generates sand and the rock in general has less than 27
percentage points of quartz which goes into making of the sand. An to convert a meter thick layer of
rock in our tropical climate takes a pretty long time of close to a million years.

Another “blunder” is in the anvil. It was announced in the house today – decision to recover sand from
the Akulam-Veli kayal in the NWern suburb of Trivandrum. The suction dredging or whatever type of
dredging to win sand will be futile to the ecosystem of the Kayal and the sand will be substandard as it
will be laced with sea-salt, and perhaps with a modal size of 0.5 mm or less and will not be a graded
sand desired by the construction industry.

Hence let us stand warned: Laws of nature are inviolable, but they may be modulated. Respect Gaia.
thrivikramji@gmail.com