The National Green Tribunal, Southern Bench, on Monday directed the Ernakulam District Collector to stop illegal sand mining in Periyar River near Panamkudy Kadavu.

Incessant rain since Sunday evening claimed 14 lives in landslides in Idukki district while water logging at the runway forced the Kochi International Airport to suspend operations till Tuesday aft

Kerala on Tuesday argued before the Supreme Court that the Mullaperiyar water agreement has become legally unsustainable after the state legislature passed the Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservat

Kochi: The pollution in the industrial belt of Eloor-Edayar is impacting on its population with four major non-communicable diseases claiming as many as 110 deaths in Kadungallur grama panchayat in just 10 months up to October 2012.

The Pathalam bund in Periyar is located in Kadungallur and 85 chemical industries are also situated above the bund. The KWA Muppathadam pump house in the Periyar which supplies drinking water to one lakh popupation in Alangad, Karumaloor and Kadungallur panchayats, is also situated in Kadungallur panchayat.

Greens have again locked horns with the State Pollution Control Board here over the alleged pollution of Periyar waters.

Environmentalists on Wednesday alleged that the board officials at the environment surveillance centre in Eloor failed to collect samples from near Edayar where discolouration of the river was reported on Tuesday. Purushan Eloor, spokesperson of the Periyar Malineekarana Virudha Samithi, said the board officials refused to collect the samples stating that there was only a patch of white discharge near the region close to Merchem company. We had alerted the board officials immediately after detecting the discolouration but they were late to reach the site, he said.

Surveillance cameras will soon monitor the physical changes of the waters of River Periyar.

The Kerala State Pollution Control Board is embarking on a video surveillance programme for the river system in association with Keltron for real time monitoring of the water body. Senior officials from the two agencies will inspect the river system next week to finalise locations for installing the cameras. The project is to install six cameras downstream Pathalam Bund, said K. Sajeevan, chairman of the board.

Illegal mining of sand from riverbeds and banks to feed the construction boom has once again become rampant in Ernakulam district, posing a serious threat to the very survival of rivers.

S. Sitaraman, environmentalist, said that after a brief period when honest police officers had kept a tight leash over the menace by taking stern action against the offenders, the problem had re-emerged in many pockets in the rural areas of the district.

Congress leader V.M. Sudheeran has accused the government of using the Emerging Kerala summit to make a backdoor attempt to promote mineral sand-mining.

Inaugurating the Kerala Environment Convention organised by the Paristhithi Aikya Vedi, a group of environmental activists, he alleged that the government was trying to hoodwink detractors of mineral sand-mining by pushing a proposal under the name of sand processing.

To protect the Periyar, the lifeline of the state, and maintain its strength and beauty, a river authority should be formed, said E P Yasodharan, chairman, Environment Cell, constituted by the Stan