The progress of the Matrimandir Lake

Auroville Today: The development of the lake has run into heavy criticism. How do you respond to that?

Michael: We have seen criticism of the lake for the past 25 years. And many of the arguments against it which were put up 20 or 15 years ago, have been proven wrong. One of the main arguments always was that this project is much too big for Auroville and that we would never be able to pay for it. I remember well, when we had a big meeting with the Town Development Council (TDC) and the then Auroville Secretary 15 years ago, the Matrimandir executives were saying they refuse to talk about the lake unless I would give them a confirmed bank guarantee for the whole cost of the lake. There was always the tendency to either skip the lake project or make the lake smaller, more shallow, less wide etc.

One other argument which is still used today was that the water quality of a lake of 10 meters depth would be very bad, much worse than if the lake would be only 4 meters deep. Two days ago I was scuba diving in the lake and inspected the big pump to fill up the small mini lake on the hill, as well as the underwater foil cushion. I have been diving for 25 years, both in the open sea as also in sweet water lakes. Never have I ever seen a freshwater lake which had such an excellent water quality. The present lake has a depth of 8 meter and at the bottom of it there is still so much light that one could even have an underwater plantation down there. The usual underwater sight in sweet water lakes is maximum 1.5 to 2.5 metres. In the Matrimandir lake you have a visibility of four to five metres! Whoever is criticizing the lake, let him come to the water and see for himself how crystal clear it is.

The fact that we are using granite chip gravel to protect the geo-fabric and foil, is also used as an argument against the lake. The alternative proposal is to use limestone. But in fact the granite chips are one of the reasons why the water is so crystal clear and why we have no excessive algae growth in the lake.

One further argument is that the lake would evaporate too much water. This argument also has been proven wrong. The evaporation is even less than the direct rainfall on the lake. When measuring the evaporation of the lake over the past two years, Jan has monitored that the evaporation of the lake is only three mm per day on average or around 1.2 metres a year. The average rainfall is around 1.3 metres per year. That means that the lake is self-supporting and receives by the direct rainfall on its surface more water than it evaporates. One of the big arguments against the lake always was that it creates a burden for Auroville to maintain its water level, and the evaporation either has to be compensated by groundwater or it depends on the desalination plant, which is not yet there. Now the measurements at the first lake section prove that this is not the case. The water level of the lake neither requires groundwater nor desalinated water to be maintained.

We also observe a strange indifference towards the project of the hill. The hill is a project which is not only a specific part of Mother’s vision of Auroville, but which would add essentially to the diversity of Auroville’s recreation opportunities. Lakes, hills, forests: all that forms an interesting nature mix. To have the opportunity to go to a nice sunset spot on a hill in the evening and overlook a vast terrain with the sky changing into pink color, is something which I miss very much in Auroville. But nobody seems to be interested in the hill. When Mother drew the hill next to the lake, and when she was speaking about the hill, She was surely not speaking about a little hillock of 10 meters height. She was speaking of a real hill with a fir tree forest covering it! And for a real hill we need a very big quantity of earth! This sets the pace also for the lake. With a 4 meter deep lake and with the design the so called ‘lake task force’ proposes, we will not even get a hillock which supersedes the level of the tree-crowns in the hill-area. This constant tendency to miniaturise the Auroville project, is in this case not only miniaturising the lake-hill project, but making it meaningless.

Arjun: Regarding the concern we often hear, that the lake would be filled using groundwater: that’s simply incorrect. Till now the lake has been filled with rainwater, both by rainwater that falls on the lake itself and by rainwater runoff from the Matrimandir garden area and from the area outside the Matrimandir lake. I am confident that in future, these will be sufficient to fill up the lake.

Look at the water level in the test lake. It's unbelievable how much rain was collected in a very short period and how much remains in the test lake even now when we are approaching the hottest months of the year. We always wondered if the rainwater would be sufficient to fill up the lake. But two years ago the monsoon was so heavy that the test lake overflowed. According to predictions of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), this year too we can expect an above-normal rainfall.

What are the plans for the rainwater that is collected in the channels along the Crown Road?

Michael: The original plans were that water collected from the Crown Road runoff would flow to the Darkali pond, and from there would be pumped to a treatment plant and be purified before being released into the Matrimandir Lake. But we are not certain if this is still the concept. Since the remaining portion of the Crown Road will be made by Aurovilians and with a different design, the waterduct on the side of the road is under review and will most probably be used for infrastructure and not for water collection. So the influx of water from the Crown road may not happen.

What is the status of the underwater drinking water storage plans?

Michael: We envisage using HDPE balloons situated inside the Lake to store desalinated water that will come from the future desalination plant. With a 10 meter deep lake, and balloons of 4 to 5 metres high, the volumes of water that can be stored in this way are enormous, and sufficient to cover Auroville’s needs in case the aquifers get depleted.

What is the status of the desalination plant?

Michael: Progress has been made obtaining the necessary permissions. We have our environmental clearance, both from Chennai and also from the Forest-Department in Villupuram. It will take some more time before we have the ultimate approval from Delhi and can start building the plant, the inlets and outlets in the sea, and continue laying the pipes that will bring the water up to the Matrimandir. But the most critical part of the application process is behind us.

We see many trucks bringing earth dug up from the second section of the lake to a temporary hillock opposite the Town Hall, located at a place where in future another extension of the lake will need to be dug. Why is this happening and what is so urgent that the work is continuing almost 24/7?

Arjun: The reason for the hurry is that in October and November, the winter monsoon will arrive, and we would like to have the second stretch of the lake ready to receive it. This means that the digging and the HDPE foiling of the lake, and covering it with gravel, will have to be completed by the end of September. The excavation is now more or less finished. We have done the excavation in the form of terraces, and what’s left now is to cut off the edges of the terraces and make the correct slopes. Then the foiling will start, followed by the gravel covering and the building of the third retaining wall of lego blocks. Initially, that wall will be four to five metres high. When all that is done, we will start removing blocks from the second wall, the wall between the test lake and the second stretch, and put them on top of the third wall.

What is the need for the second hillock next to the one which was built a few years ago, which now blocks the view of the Matrimandir from the Town Hall?

Michael: There are two reasons. The first is that all the excavated earth, which will be used to build the hill in the Greenbelt which the Mother envisaged, needs to be stored temporarily as the earth from the bottom of the excavation, which will be dug up last, has to be put at the bottom of the hill because it's more solid. If you do it the other way round, putting top soil at the bottom, the hill would be unstable as top soil has too much biomass. The second reason is that we are not yet ready to bring all the earth to the location of the hill in the Greenbelt.

How do you plan to move the earth from the two hillocks to the hill in the Greenbelt?

Arjun: By using conveyor belts. The distance between the hillocks and the envisaged location of the hill is about two kilometres and Auroville owns all the land over which such a belt would run. It is cheaper to buy and use a conveyor belt than to have trucks running up and down. Conveyor belts are not noisy or polluting. A conveyor belt can go for kilometers, through forested areas, over or under roads, and can be put at a steep angle so as to bring earth to the top of the hill. After a year or two, there will be no more hillocks.

But all the lands to create that hill have still to be purchased?

Arjun: Yes. And until that is done, the excavation of more sections of the lake may not be possible as long as we have no place to store the excavated earth. But we hope that the jigsaw puzzle of purchasing the lands for the hill area will be resolved soon. Most of the lands for the hill are already with us.

How do you plan to stabilize this second temporary hillock and prevent earth from sliding down on the nearby road if there is a sudden downpour of heavy rains?

Arjun: That’s a legitimate concern. We had this problem when we built the first hillock and we had to do a lot of work to keep the road clear. A landslip could very well happen.

Michael: We plan to move the road, which is going along the Matrimandir fence between the hillock and the buildings in the administrative area (the Town Hall, the Auroville Foundation Office, and the Auroville Archives) towards the administrative area. That will give more space for the hillock to be flattened and prevent a possible landslip. In future, a green space will be created in the area between the lake shore and the administrative area. But we will wait with planting any trees there until the hillock has been removed and that section of the lake is dug. Otherwise we would only risk damaging the trees.

We have been told that the buildings in the Administrative Area are situated at a lower level than the lake level.

Arjun: That’s correct. The floor level of the Town Hall is 1.30 metres below the lake level. But that doesn't matter. There will be an embankment with a very soft slope towards the Administrative Area buildings.

What about those people visiting the Matrimandir and its gardens?

Michael: There is no doubt that the Matrimandir, in the years to come, will attract more and more people, perhaps even thousands of people daily. We cannot allow all of them to come into the Matrimandir itself or visit the inner gardens. So they will most likely want to walk along the outer edge of the lake. Therefore, we will also need to create some shaded parks there which can hold these people.

Have you given any thought to the contouring of the Lake, to its aesthetic aspects?

Arjun: Of course. What we have at present is functional, not beautiful, and we would surely not leave it the way it is. We want to create a beautiful walkway along the outer edge of the Lake, with trees providing shade, and make the lake edges very beautiful. The gravel which one sees now will then be under water and no longer visible. As long as the construction is not finished we cannot do too much. Perhaps we can do a preliminary landscaping, a section to give people an idea of what it can be like. Mother said that the Matrimandir and its gardens and lake will be the most beautiful place on earth. We’ll do everything we can to realize that vision.