Biodiversity of Cox’s Bazar under threat

A parliamentary body yesterday said the environment and biodiversity of Cox's Bazar are at serious risk due to the dumping of poisonous substances from the shrimp hatcheries into the sea.

The parliamentary standing committee on the housing ministry in its meeting asked the Cox's Bazar Development Authority to take immediate measures so that all the hatchery owners are bound to treat waste via the effluent treatment plants.

Ruling Awami League MP and chief of the parliamentary watchdog Engineer Mosharraf Hossain presided over the meeting at Jatiya Sangsad Bhaban in the capital.

Cox's Bazar and its surrounding areas are home to about 40 shrimp hatcheries.

The five-tonne tanks in these hatcheries have to change their water consisting of moulted exoskeletons, uneaten feed and excrement every day.

One hatchery can have 30 or more active tanks where shrimp cultivation goes on, said hatchery owners.

Asheq Ullah Rafiq, a local lawmaker from Cox's Bazar-2 (Moheshkhali) and president of the Shrimp Hatchery Association of Bangladesh, yesterday told this correspondent that there is no effluent treatment plant to discharge waste into the sea.

"However, as questions were raised by different quarters, we have taken the initiative to set up effluent treatment plants and discharge wastes via ETPs," he added.

The parliamentary body yesterday instructed the Cox's Bazar Development Authority to send letters to all hotels, motels, hatcheries and building owners under the authority to set up sewerage treatment plants (STPs) and ETPs within a specific time.

The parliamentary standing committee in the meeting also asked the Chattogram Development Authority, Chattogram City Corporation and Chattogram Port Authority to work together to solve the port city's waterlogging issue.

It also asked the CDA chairperson, CCC mayor and the port authority chairperson to remain present in the standing committee's next meeting to inform about the progress of the work to solve waterlogging in Chattogram.