On Monday, January 27th, the GCIL 2020 Biome Interns had the chance to go see a 100 year old well near the Adugodi Police Station, off of Hosur Road. There, we met Narayan and his brother, two well diggers who are in charge of maintaining wells in this area. A Facebook post posted by Shubha shows some videos and pictures of this well, as well as contact information:
https://www.facebook.com/
We knew about Well Connected, Biome's well building and digging project which GCIL interns worked on last year, and had seen the Cubbon Park mural, but this was the first time we saw a well in person. The well itself is 80 feet deep, but during the dry season there can be as little as 20 feet of water. It provides water to some couple of hundreds of people in the area. This well was not in the condition that it is in today not so long ago, as it hadn't been maintained. It had "silted over", that is, there was such a deep layer of silt that water could no longer be pulled through. It was brought back to life by order of a legislative member, who saw the worth of having a working well next to the festival at the Sri Venugopal temple, which happens on February 1st.
This is where Narayan and his brother come in. They were hired to pull all of the silt out of the well so it could be used again. When we asked them how they learned this skill, they said that it was passed down from their fathers, who learned from their fathers - but they do not want to pass on this trade to their own kids. Instead, they look for work so that their kids can be educated, and decide whether or not they want to continue. Therefore, Biome is working with the older generation of well diggers, providing them with work so that they can send their children to school.
We also learned about the problems that apply not only to this well, but to multiple other wells. The well no longer has the inflow it used to have, because sidewalks and roads have been raised so that surface runoff from the streets no longer flows into it. The wells are not maintained, so they do not provide the relief from the impermeable ground that is the city that they should.
As we learned, Biome wants to change this. Right now, Bangalore depends on the five pipes that bring water up a grade from the Kaveri River. Wells are an option which will help reduce this demand. We saw examples of this in Cubbon Park, one of Bangalore City's largest green spaces. There, they have seven open wells and recharge wells. These serve different purposes. The open wells are meant to store and collect water for future usages, and eventually feed shallow aquifers. The recharge wells are made up of concrete rings stacked on top of one another, with four open holes in the sides, and coarse aggregate stacked along the sides. These wells are meant to recharge aquifers and the groundwater table - by using coarse aggregate and adding rings with holes in them, a path of least resistance is created for the water. This means that water will flow through the ground, in the top foot of earth, and when it reaches the aggregate, it suddenly has a low pressure point for which to flow downwards. This allows the water, which usually remains trapped in the first foot of earth, to flow to deeper layers and into aquifers.
Wells can and should be a part of Bangalore's water crisis, and Biome is taking important steps to make this a reality.
-GCIL 2020 Biome
https://www.facebook.com/
We knew about Well Connected, Biome's well building and digging project which GCIL interns worked on last year, and had seen the Cubbon Park mural, but this was the first time we saw a well in person. The well itself is 80 feet deep, but during the dry season there can be as little as 20 feet of water. It provides water to some couple of hundreds of people in the area. This well was not in the condition that it is in today not so long ago, as it hadn't been maintained. It had "silted over", that is, there was such a deep layer of silt that water could no longer be pulled through. It was brought back to life by order of a legislative member, who saw the worth of having a working well next to the festival at the Sri Venugopal temple, which happens on February 1st.
This is where Narayan and his brother come in. They were hired to pull all of the silt out of the well so it could be used again. When we asked them how they learned this skill, they said that it was passed down from their fathers, who learned from their fathers - but they do not want to pass on this trade to their own kids. Instead, they look for work so that their kids can be educated, and decide whether or not they want to continue. Therefore, Biome is working with the older generation of well diggers, providing them with work so that they can send their children to school.
We also learned about the problems that apply not only to this well, but to multiple other wells. The well no longer has the inflow it used to have, because sidewalks and roads have been raised so that surface runoff from the streets no longer flows into it. The wells are not maintained, so they do not provide the relief from the impermeable ground that is the city that they should.
As we learned, Biome wants to change this. Right now, Bangalore depends on the five pipes that bring water up a grade from the Kaveri River. Wells are an option which will help reduce this demand. We saw examples of this in Cubbon Park, one of Bangalore City's largest green spaces. There, they have seven open wells and recharge wells. These serve different purposes. The open wells are meant to store and collect water for future usages, and eventually feed shallow aquifers. The recharge wells are made up of concrete rings stacked on top of one another, with four open holes in the sides, and coarse aggregate stacked along the sides. These wells are meant to recharge aquifers and the groundwater table - by using coarse aggregate and adding rings with holes in them, a path of least resistance is created for the water. This means that water will flow through the ground, in the top foot of earth, and when it reaches the aggregate, it suddenly has a low pressure point for which to flow downwards. This allows the water, which usually remains trapped in the first foot of earth, to flow to deeper layers and into aquifers.
Wells can and should be a part of Bangalore's water crisis, and Biome is taking important steps to make this a reality.
-GCIL 2020 Biome
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