The Ganges River: More than just a river! The Ganges is 1557 miles long (2506 km) The Ganges Valley, or basin, is 200 to 400 miles (322 to 644 km) wide The river starts in an ice cave on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, some 10,300 feet (3,140 meters) above sea level. It flows eastward and empties into the Bay of Bengal. Its mouths forms a vast delta. At the delta it is joined by the southward-flowing Brahmaputra River. Their combined delta is the largest in the world The delta begins more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) from the Bay of Bengal and lies mostly in Bangladesh. It is largely a tangled swampland There are two major dams on the Ganga. One at Haridwar diverts much of the Himalayan snowmelt into the Upper Ganges Canal, built by the British in 1854 to irrigate the surrounding land. This caused severe deterioration to the water flow in the Ganga, and is a major cause for the decay of Ganga as an inland waterway The other dam is a serious hydroelectric affair at Farakka, close to the point where the main flow of the river enters Bangladesh, and the tributary Hooghly (also known as Bhagirathi) continues in West Bengal past Calcutta. This barrage, which feeds the Hooghly branch of the river by a 26 mile long feeder canal, and its water flow management has been a long-lingering source of dispute with Bangladesh, Sheer volume of waste - estimated at nearly 1 billion liters per day - of mostly untreated raw sewage Also, inadequate cremation procedures contributes to a large number of partially burnt or unburnt corpses floating down the Ganga, not to mention livestock corpses

History of the Ganges: The Ganges River has always been known as a religious icon in the world. The Ganges River is over 1557 miles long passing through Bangladesh and most of India. The River is known as a spiritual center because the people of India rely on the river for most life functions in the area. The uses in India for the river are nearly endless; the main functions of the river are Agricultural use, Industry, as an energy source, transportation, Drinking, bathing, and baptisms. The water from the Ganges River and the surrounding soil are very good for agricultural uses. The flooding of the river greatly enriches the nutrient content in the soil. Along the river there are also many industries such as textiles, paper, leather, and many more who use the water for power, cleaning, etc. Power, which is used by industries, is also used by the common population. Because India is very undeveloped and does not have all the technology to maximize the rivers electrical capacity, the country of India only uses 20% of the rivers potential capacity. The power is harnessed by the use of dams farther up the river. The river also serves as a drinking source, bathing hole and baptism sight. The river is one of the only sources of water for the people of India who cant afford running clean water. On the same note it is used as a mass-bathing hole, over 10 million people bathe in the river daily, these people who have diseases and very poor hygiene cause for the pollution of this river. This river is also used a baptizing sanctuary, and burial hole. Babies are baptized in the river because they believe it cleanses the child, also when a person dies and is cremated their remains are released into the river for the same reason, because they believe it cleanses the soul.

Problems of the Ganges: Since the 1950s, population and industry along the Ganges and Hugli rivers have grown dramatically and both municipal and industrial wastewater and sewage have been discharged in large quantities into the rivers. In addition, because of the religious significance of the Ganges, Hindus often cremate their dead on the river's banks and throw the remains and burnt charcoal into the river. This practice is especially common at Vârânasi. All of these factors have so polluted the river that drinking and bathing in its water have become dangerous. The major polluting industries on the Ganga are the leather industries, especially near Kanpur, which use large amounts of Chromium and other chemicals, and much of it finds its way into the meager flow of the Ganga. Unfortunately, this is a boom time for leather processing in India, which many view as a form of eco-environmental dumping on the third world, and with the lax and lubricable implementation systems of the U.P. Government, it does not seem likely that this will go down. The world bank report 1992, which focussed on the environmental issues, mentions the dissolved-oxygen and riverborne decomposing material at two points on the Ganga. However, industry is not the only source of pollution. Sheer volume of waste - estimated at nearly 1 billion litres per day - of mostly untreated raw sewage - is a significant factor. Also, inadequate cremation procedures contributes to a large number of partially burnt or unburnt corpses floating down the Ganga, not to mention livestock corpses.

Solutions for the Ganges: Pollution in the Ganges River occurs daily when civilians from all over come to bath in the most sacred river in India. Cremated bodies, sewage from factories, and occasionally a dead animal float around in the river on a daily basis. Because the river is known as a sacred healing body of water, people who have sicknesses and diseases bathe themselves hoping that it will cure them. Others who go into the polluted river do it because of tradition, especially Hindu priests. wpe7.jpg (7353 bytes) Over the years not much has been done to try to clean up the unsanitary Ganges River. The efforts that have been made have either made it worse or not even worked at all! The city of Varanasi, in India, has begun many groups to help clear up the river and make it clean to bath in once again. Veer Bhadra Misra, a head priest at the Sankat Mochan temple, founded the Sankat Mochan Foundation. The foundation gives awareness on the need to protect the Ganges River. The foundation had come up with a few ways to try to clean the river up. The plan involves a 4-mile pipeline to intercept all the sewage that would normally flow in to the Ganges from the Varanasi area. The pipeline would then extend another 4 miles to an elevated sandbar in the Ganges where a series of ponds would cleanse the waste using microorganisms to destroy the bacteria. The government has already spent about $33 million to build a plant that would help with the huge sewage problem. wpe8.jpg (4650 bytes) The problem with this new idea of using a pipeline to clean the water is the fact that it used electric-powered pumps to pump the water through to clean it. When the power goes out, the town regained all the polluted water right back, and was even more than there was before! That idea was thrown out a couple of years after it was applied. Another attempt at cleaning the water has started a couple of years ago. The Ganga Action Plan (GAP) is in effect, and will be about a seven-year process. The first phase of this plan had failed, and the people hope that the second phase will be effective. The civilians are sure it will fail if electric-powered pumps like the other clean-up ideas run it. Hopefully over the upcoming years the awareness of the polluted Ganges River will increase. The more inventions thought up on how to clean the river the better, so that the people who consider the river sacred can at least bath in a river that is just as pure as its reputation.

· The Indian government has spent close to $140 million in cleaning the Ganges, but environmentalists say there has been no significant improvement in the quality of the water in the river · Indian officials in charge of the Ganges cleanup said the Dutch aid would help complete the cleansing of the Ganges to a point where the pollution would become negligible. · Meanwhile treatment plants have been set up to ensure industrial waste goes into the river only after being treated. · One plant with the capacity to treat 5 million liters of water daily is functioning while another with a capacity to treat 36 million liters will become operational soon · Like India, China's problems with water pollution are very serious in endangering the lives of its citizens. About one fifth of the rivers in China are polluted to some extent. Though China is a water deficient country, many Chinese believe that their water supply is inexhaustible. One thing that has been polluted is China's Grand Canal. The Grand Canal has been described as the world's longest man- made waterway. It was polluted when a chemical spill from two paper mills dumped industrial waste in the canal. There have been many cleanup acts, such as the GAP act (Ganges Action Plan) and the Oswald Plan. The GAP act began in It was meant to clean up India � s most important river but after twelve years of work and $300 million in funding, the GAP has achieved few of its objectives. A recent study has proved that the amount of sewage flowing in the Ganges has doubled since 1985, while a government audit found evidence of widespread corruption in siphoning off money earmarked for the project.