News
Sampur project powers on despite protests
Indigenous people living in Santhosapuram, an adjacent forest village near Sampur, staging a protest against the project
Last Thursday, indigenous people living in Santhosapuram, an adjacent forest village near Sampur, staged a protest against the project.
The 13km long concrete fence marking the land for the power plant divides their village into two. They foresee the hardship that lies ahead as most of them are engaged in farming and hunting. A resident at the protest said he would not be able to go to the forest to collect honey once the plant is set up. “These are our traditional lands. We have been here for ages,” he said.
The land for the project has already been transferred on lease to Trincomalee Power Company Limited (TPCL), a joint venture company of Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and NTPC Limited (NTPC) with 50:50 partnership by the government.
Activist Thirunavukkarasu Gopalan, a founding member of the Green Trincomalee Movement, is of the view that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report compiled by a New Delhi-based company contains misleading information and does not study long-term threats posed by the proposed 500 megawatt (MW) coal power plant to the region’s eco-system.
“The then Sri Lankan Government also facilitated moves to give away the land to India when the war was started. Soon after the local people displaced to Batticaloa, their homes, schools, wells and other buildings were totally demolished for no reason. Later, the government claimed that land, amounting to 500 acres, was marshland and acquired it for the project without any notice to the rightful owners,” Mr. Gopalan said.
The EIA report has been prepared by M/s Mantec Consultants (Pvt.) Limited, a New Delhi-based company with input from local experts in oceanography, terrestrial ecology, marine ecology and social environment, the Lanka Hydraulic Institute and the Industrial Technology Institute under the terms of reference approved by the Central Environment Authority (CEA).
Under the topic “Socio-Economic Environment” the report notes that the “land is free from human settlements or any other livelihood related activities except ten families living beyond 250m distance from the boundary. There are no other socio-economic infrastructure facilities established in the vicinity of the land.”
Pointing to this as an example on how residential properties have been portrayed as abandoned land and tanks as no longer in use, Mr. Gopalan questioned the credibility of the report, which gave the green signal for the project. The report noted the proposed site was ideally suited for the project in terms of techno-economic, environmental and socio-economic considerations.
The former chairman of the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA), Dr. Hiran Jayawardene, who had been appointed to the EIA committee as a local expert, later resigned due to the internal manipulation of the committee, which failed to recognise severe threats posed by the proposed plant to the eco-marine resources in the Trincomalee area.
“I was unhappy with the proceedings: they thought like developers and were not ready to listen to us on how the plant is going to destroy marine resources,” Dr. Jayawardene said.
Dr. Jayewardene, who currently holds the post of Secretary-General at Officers of Indian Ocean Marine Affairs Co-operation (IOMAC), said after he studied the ecology of the Koddiyar Bay and Shell Bay he recommended that the then government preserve those resources as unique in the island but there was no followup action.
He says corals located in the surrounding areas of the construction sites might be completely damaged along with other soft coral species. In some instances, surfaces are covered with coralline algae and red, brown and green encrusting and filamentous algae. “The reason there is such eco-marine diversity in the region is that that’s where the Mahaveli River flows into the Indian Ocean,” he said.
While civil protests against the power plant are spreading to other districts, with one being held in Jaffna last week, a resolution against the proposed power plant at the Eastern Provincial Council (EPC) is in the pipeline.
Kumarasamy Nageswaran, a Tamil National Alliance (TNA) provincial councillor representing the Trincomalee district, said the council will pass the resolution before the end of this month to put more political pressure on the central government to reconsider the project.
“This is not an issue pertaining only to Sampur or the Trincomalee district: its environmental impact is going to be felt in neighbouring districts including Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa. Once the north-east monsoon season starts, toxic gases and dust particles emitted to the atmosphere from the plant will easily spread to other areas,” he said.
Another worrying factor is the purchase of coal from foreign countries for massive amounts of foreign exchange. An industrial source familiar with the coal business said on condition of anonymity that the government is currently importing high-quality coal from South Africa, Indonesia, and Russia, and once the proposed power plant is set up, India will directly export coal to the nearest jetty, which is also included in the proposed plan.
“Ahead all of this, the government is considering making coal a tax-free import item, which is quite unnatural compared to other countries, which have imposed high taxes for coal because of its effects on the environment and global warming,” the source said.
Despite the concerns, the government vowed this week to implement the Sampur project to meet the medium-term power shortage crisis in the country, with hdro-power potential dwindling.
Describing the recent power outage as being symptomatic of an energy crisis, Secretary to the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy Dr. B.M.S. Batagoda said the coal power plant was an immediate solution to the power crisis and that it would effective until 2050, by which time Sri Lanka will, he said, be self-sufficient in power due to renewable energy.
“Every year the level of power consumed is increased by 200 MW. In 10 years it will be 4000MW. The government has taken steps to meet those demands with renewable energy projects such as solar power and liquefied natural gas plants but in the meantime we need coal power to meet the power demand,” Dr. Batagoda said.
He dismissed the view that the residents of Sampur and neighbouring villages are against the proposed coal power plant due to its environmental effects, saying they were protesting because their paddy lands were going to be acquired for the industrial zone that is going to be located adjacent to the plant.