Weerawila: To take wing or not?

Final decision next month

By Rohan Abeywardena

A final decision on the building of a second International Airport at Weerawila in close proximity to the Bundala bird sanctuary is expected next month, nearly one and a half years after President Rajapaksa laid the foundation stone for the project in November 2006.

Chairman of the Central Environmental Authority, Udaya Gammanpila told The Sunday Times earlier this week that all the information called for was submitted for the project and they would evaluate the material and arrive at a final conclusion within next month.

Concerns are being raised over the construction of the Weerawila airport and possible harm that could come to the wildlife at the Bundala bird sanctuary situated nearby.

This evaluation comes after the authority was not satisfied with even the second Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) submitted for the project.

On February 7 when the Technical Evaluation Committee got down to evaluating the fresh EIA, it is learnt one of its members Dr Sarath Kotagama, an ornithologist and a wild life ecologist raised concerns about the plight of the birds at the sanctuary which had not been adequately considered in the report that had been compiled over a period of more than one year.

Dr Kotagama when contacted in this regard confirmed that realising serious gaps in the information provided, he called for details on the density of birds moving in and around the region and on the question of the risk of bird and plane collision.

Critics charged that the TEC, which had been functioning for more than one year had met only twice in that whole period. Informed Civil Aviation sources said the authorities were now keen on implementing the project on a much reduced scale due to constraints brought on by the inability to raise more than US$100 million required to implement it.

As a result the runway is to be reduced to 3500 metres from the originally planned length of 4000 metres and the terminal is to be a basic structure. Sources however assured that it would still be able to accommodate even the largest passenger aircraft Airbus A-380 in an emergency as they would not be compromising on the width of the runway, which will be 75 metres.

With the scaled down plans, they said they hoped to build a basic airport within a budget of about US $70 million and the bulk of the funds coming from the Airport and Aviation Services Ltd to the tune of about US$ 50 million and the balance from the Treasury.

There was much hope of Indian involvement in the project early this year when a delegation from the highly successful privately run Cochin International Airport toured Weerawila. Sources however said they were not interested in investing in the Lankan venture.