Climate change: Kutubdia distraught from salt production with groundwater

Apart from being used in different industries including food, salt is such a vital nutrient for the human body that a difference in its particular levels can damage organs like the brain, the kidneys, and the heart, while it can be life-threatening as well. So, even though this mineral comes cheap, one has to be careful in its use.

However, salt is being misused almost right under the nose of the regulatory authorities. As a result, living organisms below and above ground are being destroyed as well as the lives of millions of people are about to become toxic.

The details of one such incident has been uncovered in Kutubdia upazila of Cox’s Bazar in a long investigation carried out by Prothom Alo. For almost seven years, there has been a boom in the production of salt here by pumping out ground water through deep tubewells.

Kutubdia is enclosed by mud dams and is surrounded by the brackish sea water on all sides. Why does one have to extract water from deep under the ground to produce salt there? While searching for the answer to this question, there unraveled a story that has danger signs lurking in every layer.

Salt farming has been going on in the coastal districts of the country by evaporating it under the sun. However, the method of farming salt using deep tube well water in Kutubdia did not come from any scientific research or invention. An interesting story unfurled while digging into the history of matter.

A man named Sadekul Islam from Darbarghat area in Sikderpara under ward 6 of South Dhurang Union in Kutubdia used to produce salt from water of the canal created from the sea channel even in 2017.

Taking these canals on lease from the government, some locals used to supply saline water to the salt farmers. Sadekul Islam had been farming salt by buying saltwater from one such local named Nawshad. Sadekul had to pay Tk 32,000 to get saline water for his 320 decimal of land. 

However, the supply of water used to be kept suspended now and then on various excuses. As it disrupted the salt production, the two of them would often fight among themselves.

After one such fight, Sadekul installed a tube well on his own land on 15 November 2017. Ground saltwater is found only at the depth of 170 feet. Later, he started pumping that water out and carried on with the salt farming. Sadekul himself was astonished to see the result within just one week.

Earlier, he used to get 250 to 300 maunds of salt from 40 decimals of land by using the canal water. However, the ground saltwater was yielding 500 to 600 maunds of salt from the same amount of land, almost double than before! It cost Sadekul Tk 120,000 (1.2 lakh) to install the tube well. Local plumber Shona Mia Mistry installed the tube well for him.

After hearing this story from talking to more than a hundred salt farmers during a visit to Kutubdia on last 11, 12, and 13 November of 2024, this correspondent found Sadekul Islam. Sadekul told Prothom Alo with somewhat of a pride that the news of double salt production from groundwater became a sensation in an instant. People came from all over to see the tube well.

Then other salt farmers from the neghbourhood also started bargaining for that water. After eight days, he started supplying 20 farmers with water from his tube well. He collected a total of Tk 420,000 (4.2 lakh) at the rate of Tk 7,000 per 40 decimal of land from those 20 farmers in just a single season of five months. This way, Sadekul got back his investment on the tube well and earned additional Tk 300,000 (3 lakh) in a single season. On the other hand, the farmers were also really pleased to get twice as much salt.

Including all Sadekul has now installed eight tubewells and 40 farmers are farming salt on 3,200 decimal of land buying saltwater from his tubewells. As the demand kept increasing the price also kept growing. In the current season he’s charging Tk 11,000 to water per 40 decimal of land.

A farmer named Meer Kashem is farming salt on 400 decimal of land buying saltwater from Sadekul’s tubewell. In the previous 15 years, he used to get 300 mounds of salt from farming with the canal water, but now he’s getting 600 mounds. Other salt farmers Md Zaber Ahmed, 40, and Azizul Haque, 30, are also doing the same.

In Sadekul Islam’s narrative, during his father’s time they used to collect saltwater from the sea and boil it on the stove to produce salt. Back then agriculture was the main profession for hundred per cent people. There were rice silos in every house. Commercial salt farming using sea water started about 60 to 70 years ago. Workers used to supply saltwater from the canal to the field using foot-operated wooden devices then.

The scenario changed after the cyclone of 1991. The salinity level increased and paddy farming kept declining. Around 1996, about 2,000 acres of paddy farming lands in Shikderpara, Hajariapara, Nuinyachhari and several adjacent villages had been turned into salt farming lands.

While sharing the stories, Sadekul Islam said that till 2000 black salt used to be produced in the traditional method on around 6,000 acres of land in the upazila. Then, BSCIC’s salt farming method of laying black polythene sheets on the field was introduced in 2001.

At first, sections are divided on the field with small low rise boundaries. The bed is then flattened using tree trunks. After that, polythene sheets are laid in those sections and saltwater is trapped there. When that water evaporates from the heat of the sun, a layer of salt is left there, which is scrapped out in the afternoon.

However, seven canals of supplying saltwater in Kutubdia dried out as a result of rise in temperature from the impact of climate change, being filled out with silt deposition and grabbing. Then salt production using ground saltwater extracted by installing tube wells started in 2017. The production of salt and the amount of land used for salt farming kept increasing from that.

More than 300,000 (3 lakh) metric tonnes of salt was produced on about 7,000 acres of land last season. No government or non-government office has any records of how many tube wells have been installed in Kutbdia so far to extract ground saltwater and how many gallons of water is being extracted from them daily.

However, this Prothom Alo correspondent has been keeping an eye on the destructive activities of producing salt with the ground saltwater in Kutubdia for four years. This correspondent visited Kutubdia at least 12 times in four years from November 2021 to 7 February 2025 (during the salt production season of five months from November to May).

During his visits he tried collecting data and statistics from speaking to at least 500 people including salt farmers, labourers, land owners, salt trading middlemen, plumbers who install tube wells, salt mill owners, environment organisation leaders, people from BSCIC, public health engineering, agriculture department, health department, students, Upazila administration and various other government and private offices.

According to data found during the investigation, 23 tube wells were installed in Kutubdia for extraction of ground water in 2017. The number increased to 45 in 2018, 135 in 2019, 309 in 2021, 450 in 2021, 754 in 2023, and 960 in 2024. And now, the number of tube wells has increased to more than 1,550 till February this year.

As per assumption from various sources, 5 million (50 lakh) gallons of water is being pumped out of these tube wells daily and the amount is increasing gradually. About 1,500 of these tube wells have been installed in illegal ways. And reportedly, not even a single tube well has been removed.

The plumber, Shona Mia Mistry who had installed the first tube well for Sadekul in 2017, has alone installed more than 230 tube wells in six years till December 2024. In his words, there are 40-45 more plumbers for installing tube wells in this upazila. They too have installed a number of tube wells. The tubewells go up to the depth of 180 feet to 223 feet.

Shona Mia, 48, told Prothom Alo that saltwater could be found at the depth of just 120-170 feet towards the beginning. Now they have to install 230-470 feet of pipes for saltwater. Meanwhile, tube wells with the depth of 800 feet to 1,400 feet are being installed for drinking water.

There are about 5,000 salt trading middlemen in the upazila. Some of the middlemen are selling saltwater by installing 5, 10 or 15 tube wells each. The land owners themselves are also producing salt by installing tube wells there.

One such land owner and salt trader is Kamrul Hasan Shikder, who is also the lessee of Dhurang Bazar. Kamrul Hasan spoke to Prothom Alo sitting in his own office on the two-storey building of Dhurang Bazar on 5 February. He had spoken to Prothom Alo once more on 12 November of 2024.

On both occasions he portrayed a picture of salt farming saying, “Though the production of salt in Kutubdia has increased from using ground saltwater neither the local farmers nor the businessmen are being benefited. Yet, 1,500 to 2,000 tube wells have been installed here already. There might be a time when there will be no water left in the tube wells. Then there will be no salt farming. People’s sufferings will increase even more. And, there will be environmental disasters.”

Kamrul Hasan is producing salt on his 200 decimals of land this season. He has installed 10 tube wells on his field to extract ground saltwater. Alongside supplying water to his own lands, he has earned more than Tk 800,000 (Tk 8 lakh) this season from supplying saltwater to 240 decimals of land owned by 40 other local farmers.

The century-old Dhurang Bazar in the Upazila remains empty during the day. However, it buzzes with the crowd of people since evening till late night. More than 1,000 shops buzzes with business. As much as 95 per cent of them are buyers of salt.

General secretary of Dhurang Bazar Traders-Owners association, Misbahul Haque Shikder has been involved in the production and trade of salt for 12 years. He’s farming salt on 240 decimals of his own land this time. More than 10 tube wells have been installed there. Misbahul said that there is a shortage of drinking water in every household of Kutubdia due to excessive extraction of groundwater.

Although twice as much salt is produced from ground saltwater, no one has the exact data on the salinity level of the water. Different data is reported from different government departments at different times. Some say that the salinity level in ground saltwater is 60 ppt; some say 30 ppt; which is one and a half to four times higher than that of the sea water. However, there is no data of any research available on the subject.

Eventually, the salinity level was tested on Prothom Alo’s initiative. The work of sample collection started on 5 February. Mechanic at the department of public health engineering in Kutubdia, Sohel Rana assisted in the work.  He has been managing the tests run on various tube wells on the island for the last five years.

Around 11:00 am on the day, half a litre of saltwater was collected for testing from the ocean channel adjacent to ‘Boroghop Jetty’. Then, another bottle of saltwater was collected from a canal seven kilometres away in Hazaripara area of Lemshikhali around 12:00 pm. Later, a bottle of ground saltwater sample was collected from local salt farmer Sirajul Islam’s tube well.

General secretary of Bangladesh Poribesh Andolan (BAPA) in Kutubdia, Abul Kashem was present at the scene. He said, “While, twice as much salt is being produced here from the ground saltwater, it’s giving rise to an environmental disaster. We had sent a complaint through the UNO to save Kutubdia from it but to no avail. On the contrary the number of tube wells kept increasing. The drinking water is running out as well. If it continues like this, the salt resources, environment, life and livelihood everything on Kutubdia will be runed within two to three years.”

Prothom Alo on the afternoon of 10 February received the sample test reports from the laboratory of the public health engineering department in Mohazerpara area of Cox’s Bazar city. According to the reports, the salinity level found in the water of ocean channel is 22.8 ppt (part per trillion) with a chloride level of 16,300 milligram.

Meanwhile, the salinity level detected in the canal water from Hazariyapara is 26.4 ppt with a chloride level of 19,100 milligram. On the other hand, the ground saltwater from the tube well had a salinity level of 29.7 ppt with a chloride level of 21,000 milligram.

When asked, two experts of the lab told Prothom Alo that there’s an example of record 34 ppt being found found in saltwater. The salinity level of water varies depending on the area. The environment of the area with high salinity level in water is considered risky.

However, deputy general manager of BSCIC’s salt industry development project Jafar Iqbal Bhiuyan told Prothom Alo that a sample of ground saltwater collected from a tube well in Rajakhali area of Lemshikhali union ward no. 1 in Kutubdia contained a salinity level of 60 ppt while tested at a lab of Islampur area in Cox’s Bazar Sadar. Meanwhile, a salinity level of 40 ppt has been detected in the water of a tube well from Bashkhali area in Chattogram.

Jafar Iqbal Bhuiyan also said that the salinity level may differ based on the area. Though, the ground saltwater produces twice as much salt compared to ocean or canal waters, grains of this salt doesn’t crystalise. Because of that this salt is being sold for less. There might be some problem in the ground saltwater. To find out why the salt grains are not crytalising, ground saltwater samples are being collected afresh to test them in different labs.

The clock was striking 11:00 am on 5 February. A stretch of 50 to 60 acres of mangrove forest could be noticed on the northern and southern parts of Boroghop Jettyghat, which is the main jetty for getting on and off the Kutubdia island. Salt was being produced on the empty field behind the mangrove forest. Salt farming is continuing on 500-600 acres of land on both sides of the one-and-a-half-kilometre road stretched from the jetty to the coastal afforestation department office. Most of these are khas lands (land under direct control of the government).

Influential people are producing salt there by taking the land on one-year lease from the upazila administration in the name of shrimp farming. A farmer named Shawkat said, “The government gets an annual lease fee of Tk 500-600 from every 40 decimal of land. That same land is given to sharecrop farmers for salt farming in exchange of Tk 80,000.” 

Whoever you meet or talk to on the way has the same tone of despair and an urge to save Kutubdia. But, nobody knows the way to do so.

The 17 km Azam Road (main road) stretches from the Upazila office towards the north to Ali Akbar Balighat in North Dhurung Union. While riding an easy bike (battery-run three wheeler) on that road, there are just stretches of fields on both sides a far as the eyes can see. And there are countless piles of salt lying in the fields.

Hundreds of tubewells are all over these fields. Ground saltwater is being extracted through the tubewells with motor pumps day and night. The noise coming from hundreds of the pumps is almost deafening. There are 76 more kilometres of internal roads for travelling to different unions on both sides of Azam Road. Noise of hundreds of pumps running comes from there as well.

More than 300 local vehicles named lorry-tempo with engines that are used for salt transportation also make a huge noise. Wherever you go in the upazila there’s this ear splitting noise everywhere. People even sleep at night with the noise.

During the visit to the island in January last year, there was a booming sale of salt noticed there. At the time, salt was sold for Tk 350-450 per maund. The opposite picture was noticed this time. The produced salt was being piled up in the field instead of selling them. 

While visiting more than 45 villages in six unions of the Upazila for three consecutive days from 5 February, more than 2,000 mounds of salt were noticed lying there. As they are incurring losses on sales, the farmers have just left the produced salt in piles. Many are digging ditches like ponds and storing the salt in them.

There are no government or private warehouses there to store salt. A farmer from Boroghop area, Amzad Hossain, 55, said it’s costing him Tk 350 to produce a mound of salt but the same salt is being sold for Tk 180 only. There are no people on the island to ensure fair price of salt or for speaking in favour of the affected farmers.

Mentioning that Kutubdia is in extreme danger from the impact of climate change, chief of COAST Foundation Rezaul Karim Chowdhury told Prothom Alo that the biggest risk factor for Kutubdia at the moment is salt. Salt is being produced by eccessive extraction of ground saltwater thrugh shallow well pumps. And, the mangrove forest which is essential for coastal protection is being destroyed for increasing the amount of salt farming field.

Potable water is required to save the people of Kutubdia. The drinking water is needed for vegetable farming as well. But, there’s a dire crisis of drinking water going on in every house of Kutubdia.  There are more than 21,000 tube wells in six unions of the Upazila. The water in at least 12,000 of those tube wells has turned brackish. In some unions, the layer of ground water has stoopped so low that drinking water cannot be found event at the depth of 1,200 feet.

On 18 November 2023, the then deputy assistant engineer at the public health engineering department in Kutubdia Upazila, Md Al Amin said the same thing sitting in his office. The situation has become even more critical now.

On this 6 February, current deputy assistant engineer Md Farhad Bhiyan said from the same office that drinkable water cannot be found even at the depth of 1,400 feet in some villages including ward no. 4 and 7 in Boroghop Union, and Malamchar in Koiyarbil Union.

In order to solve the drinking water crisis, a drinking water supply project is being implemented for at least 2,000 families by installing a 13-kilometer pipeline in Koiyarbil Union, 10-kilometer pipeline in Boroghop Union, 12-kilometer pipeline in Lemshikhali, and 7-kilometer pipeline in South Dhurung Union under a project for providing urban facilities in village.

Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) under the industries ministry oversee the whole process of salt production. Although the data on how many acres of land in the district are being used for salt farming, how much salt is produced in which season, and how many farmers are involved in salt production are updated every year, BSCIC officials do not have any information about tube wells being used to extract ground saltwater for salt production or the exact number of such tube wells.

Although BSCIC officials have been reeling in praises from the government showing surplus salt production than the targeted amount, there is no initiative to identify or investigate the extent of environmental damage caused by salt production using ground saltwater.

Deputy general manager of BSCIC’s salt development project in Cox’s Bazar, Md Jafar Iqbal Bhuiyan told Prothom Alo that a survey committee has been formed recently to investigate the reasons for salt cultivation in Kutubdia using ground saltwater, count the number of such tube wells, and verify the quality of the produced salt.

However, field inspector of BSCIC’s salt development project in Cox’s Bazar, Md Idris Ali said that the number of tube wells used for extracting ground saltwater in Kutubdia has surpassed 1,000 and none of these have the approval.

According to the government records, tube wells that draw water from underground reservoirs using pipes having a diameter of 100 to 200 millimeters are divided into two categories – deep and shallow. As per the data of the public health engineering department, the ones with a depth of less than 250 feet is categorised as shallow tube wells while the ones with a depth of more than 250 feet are classified as deep tube wells.

According to government rules, to install a tube well, the interested person has to apply to the Upazila Chairman or Union Parishad Chairman first. The assistant or deputy assistant engineer of the public health engineering department following on-site verification submits the draft list of applications to the ‘site selection committee’.

Then the Upazila water supply and sanitation (watsan) committee gives final approval for tube well installation. Meanwhile, an agriculture and irrigation committee is formed at the Upazila level to install tube wells for irrigation water supply in agriculture. The UNO is the president of that committee with the Upazila agriculture officer as member secretary.

As per the Bangladesh Water act 2013, there is an integrated system for the protection, development and sustainable use of rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal waters and groundwater. All types of water within the country’s territory (such as surface water, groundwater, sea water, rainwater and atmospheric water) are owned by the government on behalf of the people.

Without prior approval, no individual or organisations are allowed to extract, distribute, use, develop, protect and conserve water resources here. Building any structure that obstructs the natural flow of rivers and creeks isn’t permitted either. However, Kutubdia seems to be an exception. While more than 1,500 tube wells have been installed without permission and are causing havoc by extracting millions of gallons of saltwater, the people concerned keep silent.

When asked, Kutubdia Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Kyathowai Prue Marma told Prothom Alo that the tube wells for drawing ground saltwater were installed in the Upazila before he had taken the charge. After he took charge, no such tube wells have been installed anywhere on the island in the last seven months. He said he doesn’t have the list of how many tube wells had been installed earlier, but the BSCIC might have that.

Member secretary of Kutubdia Upazila agriculture and irrigation committee as well as the Upazila agriculture officer, Md Rafiqul Islam told Prothom Alo that the committee after verification can give permission to install tube wells for extracting drinking water for irrigation in agriculture. However, this committee is not equipped to give permit for install tube wells for extracting ground saltwater for salt farming.

Mentioning that there’s no one present from the department of environment in Kutubdia, deputy director of the department of environment office in Cox’s Bazar, Md Jamir Uddin told Prothom Alo that he was not aware of the production of salt from extracting ground saltwater with tube wells. There will be on-site investigation into the matter.”

President of non-government environment organisation Dhoritry Rokkhay Amra (DHORA) in Cox’s Bazar, Fazlul Kader Chowdhury said that the island of Kutubdia is already under serious risk from the impacts of climate change. On top of that, more than 50 gallons of ground saltwater is being extracted daily through a thousand of deep tube wells for salt farming.

The losses suffered by hundreds of thousand people from different professions alongside agriculture and health from the destruction of environment is ten times greater than the profit made from producing 300,000 (3 lakh) tonnes of salt on Kutubdia in one season, he added.